CORNELL   STUDIES   IN    PHILOSOPHY 
No.  8 


THOUGHT  AND  REALITY 
IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM 


BY 

GUSTAVUS  WATTS  CUNNINGHAM,  A.M. 

FORMER  FELLOW  AND  SCHOLAR  IN  THE  SAGE  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


A  THESIS 

PRESENTED  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  FACULTY  OF  CORNELL  UNIVERSITY 

IN  PARTIAL  FULFILMENT  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR  THE 

DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  COMPANY 

FOURTH  AVENUE  AND  THIRTIETH  STREET 

LONDON  BOMBAY  CALCUTTA 

IQIO 


PRESS  OF 

THE  NEW  ERA  PRINTING  < 
LANCASTER.  PA. 


PREFACE. 

Perhaps  it  would  not  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  there  is  no 
system  of  thought  more  intimately  bound  up  with  one  funda- 
mental principle  than  is  the  system  of  Hegel.  Even  a  cursory 
reading  of  his  wo*ks  is  sufficient  to  convince  one  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  Notion,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  basic  to  the  system;  and  a 
more  detailed  study  only  forces  the  conviction  home.  In  the 
Phenomenology,  in  the  Encyclopedia,  in  the  History  of  Philosophy, 
in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  everywhere  it  is  this  doctrine  of 
the  Notion  upon  which  emphasis  is  laid.  Indeed,  if  one  were  to 
say  that  the  entire  system  is  just  the  explication  of  this  doc- 
trine, its  elaboration  by  definition  and  application,  one  would  be 
well  within  the  bounds  of  justification.  A  correct  interpretation 
of  the  system,  consequently,  depends  upon  a  thorough  compre- 
hension of  the  doctrine  of  the  Notion ;  if  this  doctrine  is  neglected, 
the  system  must  remain  a  sealed  book.  The  aim  of  the  present 
monograph  is  to  set  forth  this  doctrine  of  the  Notion,  to  empha- 
size its  importance  for  a  theory  of  knowledge,  and,  in  the  light 
of  it,  to  give  some  insight  into  Hegel's  conception  of  ultimate 
reality. 

The  first  chapter  of  this  study  was  read  in  part  before  the 
meeting  of  the  American  Philosophical  Association  at  Cornell 
University  in  December,  1907.  Subsequently  it  was  published 
in  an  expanded  form  in  The  Philosophical  Review  (Vol.  XVII, 
pp.  619-642),  under  the  title  "The  Significance  of  the  Hegelian 
Conception  of  Absolute  Knowledge."  My  thanks  are  due  to 
the  editor  of  the  Review  for  his  permission  to  reprint  it  here 
substantially  as  it  appeared  there. 

My  very  great  indebtedness  to  various  books  and  authors  is 
sufficiently  testified  to  by  the  footnotes.  The  references  to  the 
larger  Logic  are  to  the  edition  of  1841,  published  by  Duncker 
and  Humblot.  The  translations  of  Hegel's  works,  to  which  I 
have  referred  for  assistance  and  from  which  I  have  freely  quoted, 
are:  W.  Wallace,  The  Logic  of  Hegel  (second  edition,  1892);  W. 
Wallace,  Philosophy  of  Mind  (1894);  S.  W.  Dyde,  Philosophy 

iii 


210265 


iv  PREFACE. 

of  Right  (1896) ;  E.  B.  Speirs  and  J.  B.  Sanderson,  Philosophy  of 
Religion  (three  volumes,  1895);  E.  S.  Haldane  and  F.  H.  Simson, 
History  of  Philosophy  (three  volumes,  1894);  J-  Sibree,  Philos- 
ophy of  History  (reprint  of  1902).  I  have  not  followed  the  trans- 
lations verbatim  in  every  case ;  but  what  few  changes  have  been 
made  are,  I  trust,  not  less  faithful  to  the  original. 

To  the  members  of  the  Sage  School  of  Philosophy  I  am  deeply 
indebted  for  many  suggestions  both  consciously  and  unconsciously 
given.  Professor  G.  H.  Sabine,  of  Leland  Stanford  Jr.  Univer- 
sity, has  read  a  portion  of  the  study  in  manuscript  and  has  aided 
me  in  the  not  very  pleasant  task  of  proof-reading.  My  heaviest 
debt  of  gratitude  is  to  Professor  J.  E.  Creighton,  of  Cornell 
University,  at  whose  suggestion  the  study  was  first  undertaken 
and  under  whose  guidance  and  encouragement  it  has  been  brought 
to  completion.  The  study  would  be  much  more  imperfect  than 
it  now  appears,  were  there  not  incorporated  in  it  Professor 
Creigh ton's  many  valuable  suggestions  and  criticisms.  For  the 
content  of  the  monograph,  however,  I  myself  must  alone  be 
held  responsible. 

G.  W.  C. 

MlDDLEBURY    COLLEGE, 

September,  1910. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


Page- 

PART  I.    THOUGHT 1-78 

CHAPTER  I.     Thought  as  Objective  and  Universal 1-24    < 

CHAPTER  II.     The  Process  of  Thought:    Mediation  and 

Negation 25-  45 

CHAPTER  III.     Ontology  and  Epistemology 46-  78 

PART  II.    REALITY 79-151 

CHAPTER  IV.     Reality  as  Individual 79-1 13 

CHAPTER  V.     The  Personality  of  the  Absolute 114-151 


OF  THE 

El 

<-. :' 


THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEUS  SYSTEM 


PART    I. 


CHAPTER   I. 
THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND  UNIVERSAL. 

Perhaps  no  part  of  Hegel's  system  has  been  more  persistently 
overlooked  or  misunderstood  than  has  his  doctrine  of  the  nature 
of  thought.  Certainly  no  part  of  his  system  deserves  to  be  more 
carefully  studied.  For  this  is  the  doctrine  that  is  absolutely 
fundamental  to  his  system;  and  it  must  be  understood  before 
any  fair  appreciation  of  his  system  can  be  arrived  at  or  any  just 
criticism  of  his  contentions  be  advanced.  To  give  an  exposition 
of  the  Hegelian  doctrine  of  thought,  and  to  do  this  as  much  as 
is  practicable  in  the  author's  own  words,  is  the  aim  of  this  chapter. 

Almost  universally  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  the  Logic  con- 
tains all  that  Hegel  thought  it  worth  while  to  say  about  the 
nature  of  thought.  His  epistemology  is  criticized  and  defended 
against  criticism  exclusively  on  the  basis  of  the  dialectical  de- 
velopment of  the  categories,  the  assumption  of  both  critic  and 
champion  being  that  here  we  find  Hegel's  last  word  concerning 
the  nature  of  knowledge.  That  such  an  assumption  is  erroneous 
and  leads  to  positive  error  in  interpreting  the  Hegelian  epis- 
temology will,  I  trust,  appear  in  what  is  to  follow.  The  Logic 
does,  indeed,  purport  to  give  an  account  of  the  essentially  organic 
nature  of  thought,  by  showing  how  one  category  necessarily  loses 
itself  in  its  negative,  which  proves  to  be,  not  an  abstract  negative, 
but  a  negative  that  dialectically  leads  on  to  a  more  concrete 
synthesis  of  the  two  opposed  categories.  The  Logic  leads  pro- 
gressively from  the  abstract  categories  of  Being,  through  the 
more  concrete  categories  of  Essence,  to  the  still  more  concrete 
categories  of  the  Notion;  and  finally  to  the  most  concrete  cate- 


2  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

gory  of  all,  that  category  in  which  all  the  lower  categories  find 
their  'truth,'  namely,  the  Absolute  Idea.  This  the  Logic  does; 
but  this  is  all  that  it  does.  It  tells  us  nothing  direct  about  the 
empirical  significance  of  the  categories  themselves.  Except  by 
frequent  hints — which  indeed  are  quite  emphatic  and  significant 
—the  Logic  gives  us  no  insight  into  that  fundamental  problem 
of  epistemology,  namely,  the  significance  of  the  subject-object 
relation.  On  the  contrary,  as  Hegel  himself  declares,  the  very 
purpose  of  the  Logic  is  to  deal  with  the  categories  in  the  pure 
ether  of  thought  and  in  abstraction  from  their  empirical  setting.1 
So  in  the  Logic  we  search  in  vain  for  an  exposition  of 
this  most  important  aspect  of  our  knowing  experience;  the 
implications  of  the  objective  reference  of  thought  are  not  ex- 
plicitly touched  upon  there.  For  such  an  exposition  we  must 
look  elsewhere. 

The  exposition  for  which  we  seek  is  to  be  found  in  the  Phenom- 
enology of  Spirit.  Perhaps  this  will  appear  beyond  dispute  from 
a  consideration  of  some  of  Hegel's  own  statements  on  the  point. 
In  the  preface  to  the  Phenomenology  he  says:  "The  task  which  I 
have  set  myself  is  to  elaborate  the  fact  that  philosophy  ap- 
proaches the  form  of  science — approaches  the  point  where  it 
lays  aside  the  name  of  love  for  knowledge,  and  becomes  real 
knowledge."2  Again,  later  in  the  same  preface  we  read:  "The 
process  of  science  in  general,  or  of  knowledge,  is  set  forth  in  the 
Phenomenology  of  Spirit.  Knowledge  as  it  is  at  first,  or  the 
immediate  spirit,  is  spiritless  or  sensuous  consciousness.  In  order 
to  become  real  knowledge,  to  reach  the  element  of  science  which 
is  its  pure  notion  itself,  this  sensuous  consciousness  has  to  work 
itself  through  a  long  way."3  This  way  is,  of  course,  that  traced 
by  the  Phenomenology.  A  little  later  in  the  same  work  we  are 
told  that  the  problem  of  the  Phenomenology  is  simply  "an  in- 
vestigation and  proof  of  the  reality  of  knowledge."4  This  same 

1This  statement  may  be  easily  misconstrued  and  should  be  hedged  about  with 
reservations.  Since,  however,  these  reservations  are  to  be  developed  later,  I  con- 
tent myself  here  with  merely  calling  attention  to  the  fact.  As  we  shall  see  below, 
the  assertion  that  Hegel  deals  in  the  Logic  with  thought  in  abstraction  is  not  equiv- 
alent to  the  assertion  that  he  there  deals  with  abstract  thought.  The  reader  is 
asked  kindly  to  regard  the  above  statement  as  a  preliminary  one,  to  be  read  in 
the  light  of  what  is  to  follow. 

*Werke,  Bd.  II,  p.  6.  *Ibid.,  p.  21.  *Ibid.,  p.  64. 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  3 

point  Hegel  is  emphasizing  when  he  urges  that  the  Phenome- 
nology is  the  science  of  experience;  for  experience,  he  tells  us,  is 
only  the  "dialectical  process  (Bewegung)  which  perfects  con- 
sciousness in  itself,  both  in  its  knowledge  and  in  its  object."1 
In  other  words,  since  experience  is  essentially  a  subject-object 
relation,  its  truth  is  to  be  found  in  the  determination  of  the  real 
import  and  significance  of  that  relation.  Thus  it  seems  that 
the  problem  of  Phenomenology  is  pretty  clearly  defined:  it  is 
simply  the  progressive  definition  and  exposition  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  this  duality  within  experience.  It  is  not  merely  to 
trace  an  organic  development  from  one  to  another  stage  of  con- 
sciousness, as  Professor  Baillie  would  seem  to  suggest.2  Rather 
is  it  to  disclose  the  important  change  that  takes  place  between 
subject  and  object  as  the  knowing  experience  is  traced  through 
the  various  attitudes  of  consciousness.  As  Lasson  aptly  remarks 
in  the  introduction  to  his  recent  edition  of  the  Phenomenology, 
the  point  of  interest  in  the  work  is  the  transition  "from  one  rela- 
tion of  consciousness  to  the  entire  world  of  being,  to  another  such 
relation."3  Hegel's  purpose  in  this  novel  Introduction  to  Philos- 
ophy is  not  like  Kant's  in  the  first  of  the  Critiques,  namely,  to 
investigate  the  possibility  and  limitations  of  knowledge.  He 
accepts  knowledge  and  the  knowing  experience  very  much  as  it 
is  accepted  by  common-sense,  and  then  proceeds  to  develop  its 
implications.  Passing  dialectically  from  sensuous  consciousness 
through  self-consciousness,  reason,  spirit,  and  religion,  he  finally 
arrives  at  what  seems  to  him  to  be  the  true  attitude  of  conscious- 
ness, the  truth  of  the  knowing  experience.  This  final  result  of 
the  Phenomenology,  which  Hegel  calls  Absolute  Knowledge  (das 
absolute  Wissen) ,  is  thus  his  definition  of  the  real  nature  of  knowl- 
edge; it  is  his  final  statement  of  the  significance  of  the  subject- 
object  relation  within  concrete  experience. 

It  is  very  important  to  notice  at  the  outset,  and  to  keep  con- 
stantly in  mind,  the  fact  that  Hegel  bases  this  conception  of  abso- 
lute knowledge  directly  and  unequivocally  upon  our  common 
knowing  experience.  This  point  is  so  fundamental,  and  is  so 
generally  neglected  by  the  critics,  that  it  needs  emphasis  even  at 

llbid.,  p.  67. 

2Cf.  The  Origin  and  Significance  of  Hegel's  Logic,  Chapters  VI,  VII. 

3Phanomenologie  des  Geisles,  p.  ciii. 


4  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

the  risk  of  digression.  If  there  is  wanted  more  evidence  than  has 
already  been  adduced,  it  is  not  far  to  seek.  In  the  Preface  to  the 
Phenomenology  itself,  we  find  an  explicit  statement  to  the  effect 
that  there  is  no  break  between  consciousness  as  it  appears  in 
sensuous  perception  and  in  absolute  knowing;  and  this  very  fact, 
Hegel  argues,  makes  possible  the  transition  from  the  lower  to 
the  higher  stage.  "The  beginning  of  philosophy,"  he  says, 
"makes  the  presupposition  or  demand  that  consciousness  be  in 
this  element"  (i.  e.t  as  the  context  indicates,  in  the  'element* 
of  'absolute  science,'  which  is  simply  the  point  of  view  of  abso- 
lute knowledge).  "But  this  element  receives  its  completion  and 
clearness  only  through  the  process  of  its  development.  .  .  .  On 
its  side,  science  demands  of  self-consciousness  that  it  raise  itself 
into  this  ether.  .  .  .  On  the  other  hand,  the  individual  has  a 
right  to  ask  that  science  at  least  let  down  to  him  the  ladder  to  this 
standpoint,  that  is,  show  him  the  standpoint  within  himself."1 
Furthermore,  in  the  Introduction  to  the  larger  Logic  we  read: 
"Absolute  knowledge  is  the  truth  of  all  modes  or  attitudes  of  con- 
sciousness. .  .  ."2  Finally,  there  is  a  passage  in  the  smaller  Logic 
which  runs  thus:  "In  my  Phenomenology  of  Spirit  .  .  .  the 
method  adopted  was  to  begin  with  the  first  and  simplest  phase  of 
mind,  immediate  consciousness,  and  to  show  how  that  stage 
gradually  of  necessity  worked  onward  to  the  philosophical  point  of 
view,  the  necessity  of  that  view  being  proved  by  the  process."3 
Now  it  would  seem  that  the  import  of  such  passages  as  these  is 
unmistakable.  The  Phenomenology  begins  with  the  most  naive 
attitude  of  consciousness,  where  the  matter  of  intuition  is  looked 
upon  as  a  mere  datum;  its  progress,  as  Professor  McGilvary  sug- 
gests,4 consists  just  in  showing  that  this  sensuous  consciousness  is 
an  essential  element  in  absolute  knowing.  In  other  words,  the 
standpoint  of  absolute  knowing  is  involved  in  every,  even  the 
simplest,  phase  of  consciousness;  it  is  implied  in  every  act  of 
knowledge,  in  every  subject-object  relation, — which  is  tanta- 
mount to  saying  that  it  is  conterminous  with  experience  itself. 

Near  the  end  of  his  discussion  of  the  Phenomenology,  Haym, 
looking  back  over  the  course  of  its  development,  remarks: 
"This  whole  phenomenological  genesis  of  absolute  knowledge 

lOp.  cit.,  pp.  19-20.  2Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  p.  32. 

3Enc.,  §  25.  ^Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  VI,  p.  500. 


THOUGHT  AS   OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  5 

was  nothing  other  than  the  presence  of  the  Absolute,  which  un- 
folded itself  before  our  very  eyes  in  the  methodical  manner  pe- 
culiar to  its  spiritual  nature.  It  was  the  self-development  of  the 
Absolute  as  it  has  mirrored  itself  in  consciousness  and  in  history."1 
One  is  led  to  believe  that  the  critic  means  by  this,  as  he  says  later, 
that  the  ego  "is  at  the  beginning  of  the  Phenomenology  exactly 
where  it  ought  to  be  at  the  end, — not  in  itself,  but  in  the  Abso- 
lute."2 The  suggestion  of  such  a  point  of  view  as  this,  however, 
seems  to  me  to  be  at  best  misleading.  Whatever  may  be  said 
concerning  the  relation  of  the  result  of  the  Phenomenology  to  the 
standpoint  of  an  Absolute  Intelligence,3  there  is  certainly  no 
reason  for  maintaining  that  Hegel  would  ask  us  to  assume  such 
a  standpoint  at  the  beginning  of  the  Phenomenology.  He  asks  us 
merely  to  place  ourselves  at  the  point  of  view  of  sensuous  con- 
sciousness, and  to  try  to  discover  its  logical  implications.  It  is, 
indeed,  true  that  in  the  attitude  of  sensuous  consciousness  Hegel 
sees  the  standpoint  of  absolute  knowing,  which  thus  finds  its  basis 
in  the  actual  knowing  experiences  of  finite  individuals;  and  it  is 
also  true  that  these  experiences  are  never  left  out  of  consideration 
by  him.  But  this  means  nothing  more  than  that  absolute  knowl- 
edge is  logically  involved  in  every  knowing  experience,  and  that 
investigation  can  prove  that  it  is  so  involved.  Hegel  himself  has 
very  clearly  put  the  matter  in  another  context:  "It  may  be  said 
that  the  Absolute  is  involved  in  every  beginning,  just  as  every 

lHegel  und  seine  Zeit,  p.  255.  2Ibid.,  p.  256. 

3Professor  Baillie  identifies  absolute  knowledge  with  Absolute  Mind  (cf.  Hegel's 
Logic,  pp.  1 86  ff.),  urging  that  in  the  category  of  absolute  knowledge  "the  stand- 
point of  Absolute  Mind  has  been  fully  and  unequivocally  adopted"  (ibid.,  p.  189). 
This  identification  seems  to  me,  however,  to  contribute  only  to  confusion.  The 
point  of  interest  to  Hegel  in  the  Phenomenology  is  the  removal  of  the  opposition 
which  at  first  appears  to  exist  between  consciousness  and  its  content.  And  this 
he  does  in  the  category  of  absolute  knowledge.  But  when  this  is  accomplished, 
we  have  not  passed  beyond  the  realm  of  finite  consciousness  at  all;  we  have  only 
seen  finite  consciousness  in  its  true  import.  The  standpoint  of  absolute  knowl- 
edge is  implicit  in  all  finite  consciousness;  this  fact  Professor  Baillie  insists  upon 
(see  ibid.,  pp.  190  ff.).  Why,  then,  baldly  identify  the  category  with  the  standpoint 
of  the  Absolute?  If  we  insist  on  the  identification  here,  we  at  least  shift  the 
emphasis  from  the  point  to  be  emphasized,  namely,  that  this  penetration  of  its 
object  by  consciousness  is  involved  in  every  stage  of  consciousness  from  the  sensu- 
ous up.  It  may  be  that  absolute  knowledge  implies  the  existence  of  Absolute  Mind, 
but  this  is  another  matter;  it  is  simply  a  confusion  of  the  point  at  issue  here  to 
identify  the  two. 


6  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

advance  is  simply  an  exposition  of  it.  ...  But  because  it  is  at 
first  only  implicit,  it  is  really  not  the  Absolute.  .  .  .  The  ad- 
vance, therefore,  is  not  a  sort  of  overflow,  as  it  would  be  were 
the  beginning  truly  the  Absolute;  rather  the  development  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  the  universal  determines  itself.  .  .  .  Only 
in  its  completion  is  it  the  Absolute."1  Even  granting,  then,  for 
the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  Hegel  finally  identifies  absolute 
knowledge  with  the  point  of  view  of  an  omniscient  Intelligence 
(which  assumption  is  by  no  means  self-evident, — indeed,  it  is 
difficult  to  prove  that  Hegel's  Absolute  is  such  an  Intelligence), 
we  are  certainly  not  justified  in  saying  that  he  emerges  from  the 
Phenomenology  with  nothing  more  than  the  assumption  with 
which  he  began  his  investigation.  The  standpoint  of  absolute 
knowledge  is  not  assumed  at  the  beginning;  it  is  arrived  at  only 
at  the  end.  And  to  accuse  Hegel  of  having  begun  with  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Absolute  is  an  indication  that  his  actual 
procedure  has  been  misconstrued.  Absolute  knowledge  does 
not,  as  Haym  asserts,  find  its  justification  in  the  fact  that  "the 
Weltgeist  has  completed  itself  in  history,"  but,  as  we  shall  see 
later,  in  the  fact  that  it  is  the  necessary  presupposition  of  all 
concrete  individual  experience. 

Lotze,  too,  has  brought  practically  the  same  accusation  against 
Hegel.  "It  was  not  after  Hegel's  mind,"  he  tells  us,  "to  begin 
by  determining  the  subjective  forms  of  thought,  under  which 
alone  we  can  apprehend  the  concrete  nature  of  this  ground  of 
the  Universe, — a  nature  perhaps  to  us  inaccessible.  From  the 
outset  he  looked  on  the  motion  of  our  thought  in  its  effort  to 
gain  a  clear  idea  of  this  still  obscure  goal  of  our  aspiration  as  the 
proper  inward  development  of  the  Absolute  itself,  which  only 
needed  to  be  pursued  consistently  in  order  gradually  to  bring 
into  consciousness  all  that  the  universe  contains."2  Now  I 
submit  that  such  an  accusation  entirely  overlooks  the  procedure 
of  the  Phenomenology  in  establishing  the  category  of  absolute 
knowledge.  The  very  purpose  of  this  effort  was  'to  determine 
the  subjective  forms  of  thought'  as  they  appear  in  the  knowing 
experience  of  the  individual.  It  is  true  that  Hegel  did  not  enter 
into  psychological  discussion  of  individual  minds;  his  aim  was 

1Werke,  Bd.  V,  pp.  324-325.  ^Metaphysics,  Bk.  I,  Chap,  vii,  §  88. 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  7 

epistemological  and  not  psychological.1  It  is  also  true  that  he 
ended  his  investigation  by  exhibiting  the  essential  objectivity  of 
these  so-called  'subjective  forms'  of  thought.  But  the  fact  still 
remains  that  he  took  his  stand  on  actual  human  experience  and 
began  his  inquiry  with  common  everyday  consciousness.  In 
the  case  of  the  Logic  (provided  one  forgets  the  fact  that  the  result 
of  the  Phenomenology  is  its  presupposition)  it  may  be  argued 
with  some  show  of  plausibility  that  from  the  outset  the  author 
regards  thought  as  the  "proper  inward  development  of  the 
Absolute  itself."  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  concern- 
ing the  baselessness  of  the  charge  when  made  with  reference  to 
the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit.  The  category  of  absolute  knowl- 
edge is  not  a  first  principle  shot  out  of  a  pistol  at  us,  as  it  were, 
but  a  conclusion  laboriously  reached;  and  it  is  attained  only  by 
a  careful  and  painstaking  examination  of  all  stages  of  conscious- 
ness from  the  sensuous  to  the  scientific  and  religious.  Where- 
ever  there  is  a  subject-object  relation,  there  the  characteristics  of 
absolute  knowledge  are  disclosed. 

Absolute  knowledge  being,  then,  Hegel's  interpretation  of  the 
essential  characteristics  of  thought  as  it  appears  in  every  actual 
knowing  experience,  the  question  arises  concerning  the  details  of 
the  conception.  What  are  the  fundamental  characteristics  of 
thought  as  defined  in  this  Hegelian  category?  It  is  to  an  attempt 
to  answer  this  question,  partially  at  least,  that  we  now  address 
ourselves. 

In  the  first  place,  Hegel  claims  that  his  conception  of  abso- 
lute knowledge  gives  thought  release  from  the  subjectivity  in 
which  it  was  bound  by  both  the  Kantian  and  Fichtean  systems. 
Kant,  he  admits,  does  indeed  give  to  thought  a  quasi-objectivity, 
namely,  universal  validity.  "Kant  gave  the  title  objective  to  the 
intellectual  factor,  to  the  universal  and  necessary;  and  he  was 
quite  justified  in  so  doing."2  That  is  to  say,  for  Kant  objectivity 
means  the  universally  valid  in  contradistinction  to  the  particu- 
larity and  relativity  of  sense-perception ;  and  this  is  a  step  in  the 
right  direction  towards  true  objectivity.  "But  after  all,"  Hegel 
continues,  "objectivity  of  thought,  in  Kant's  sense,  is  again  to  a 

^ee  Haym's  criticism  of  Hegel  on  this  point,  op.  cit.,  pp.  235  ff. 
zEnc.,  §  41,  lecture-note  (2). 


8  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

certain  extent  subjective.  Thoughts,  according  to  Kant,  although 
universal  and  necessary  categories,  are  only  our  thoughts — sepa- 
rated by  an  impassable  gulf  from  the  thing,  as  it  exists  apart 
from  our  knowledge."1  In  other  words,  Kant's  categories  can- 
not, by  their  very  nature,  express  the  real :  they  are  mere  ideas, 
which  can  indeed  tell  us  about  the  temporal  and  spatial  relations 
of  objects,  but  which  just  for  this  reason  can  give  us  no  insight 
into  the  nature  of  ultimate  reality.  Hegel  elsewhere  speaks  of 
them  as  prisms  through  which  the  light  of  truth  is  so  refracted 
and  broken  that  it  can  never  be  had  in  its  purity.  Such  ideal- 
ism, Hegel  justly  concludes,  is  purely  subjective.2  Heroic  as 
were  Fichte's  efforts  to  break  through  to  reality,  they  were, 
Hegel  asserts,  unavailing.  "Fichte,"  he  says,  "never  advanced 
beyond  Kant's  conclusion,  that  the  finite  only  is  knowable,  while 
the  infinite  transcends  the  range  of  thought.  What  Kant  calls 
the  thing-by-itself,  Fichte  calls  the  impulse  from  without, — that 
abstraction  of  something  else  than  'I,'  not  otherwise  describable 
or  definable  than  as  the  negative  or  non-Ego  in  general."3  To 
express  it  otherwise,  Fichte,  in  his  search  for  objectivity,  finds 
nothing  more  satisfactory  than  an  unattainable  ideal,  an  eternal 
Sollen.  But  this  vanishing  ideal  does  not  meet  the  difficulty; 
thought,  which  merely  ought  to  be  objective,  is  still  subjective, 
even  though  an  infinite  time  be  allowed  for  transition  to  objec- 
tivity. Consequently,  Fichte's  position,  like  Kant's,  is  in  the 
last  analysis  nothing  more  than  subjective  idealism.  Now  the 
standpoint  of  absolute  knowledge,  Hegel  maintains,  transcends 
the  dualism  in  which  the  systems  of  Kant  and  Fichte  seem  hope- 
lessly involved.  It  gives  to  thought,  not  a  quasi-objectivity  or 
an  objectivity  that  ought  to  be,  but  an  objectivity  that  is  at  once 
genuine  and  actual. 

Hegel  has  left  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  what  he  thinks  such  an 
objectivity  implies.  In  the  context  of  the  above  criticism  of 
Kant,  he  says:  "The  true  objectivity  of  thinking  means  that  the 
thoughts,  far  from  being  merely  ours,  must  at  the  same  time  be 
the  real  essence  of  the  things,  and  of  whatever  is  an  object  to  us." 
Later  in  the  same  context  he  tells  us  that  objectivity  means  "the 
thought-apprehended  essence  of  the  existing  thing,  in  contra- 

lLoc.  cit.  *Werke,  Bd.  IV,  p.  127.  3Enc.,  §  60,  lecture-note  (2). 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  9 

distinction  from  what  is  merely  our  thought,  and  what  conse- 
quently is  still  separated  from  the  thing  itself,  as  it  exists  in  inde- 
pendent essence."  From  these  very  explicit  statements  it  is 
evident  that  objectivity  of  thought  means  for  Hegel  at  least  two 
things:  (a)  that  thought  which  is  truly  objective  is  not  particu- 
lar and  individual,  but  in  a  sense  transcends  the  individual;  and 
(b)  that  truly  objective  thought  does  actually  express  the  essence 
of  things.  A  consideration  of  these  two  points  will  now  occupy 
our  attention  for  a  time. 

The  first  of  these  points,  that  thought  is  really  more  than  an 
individual  affair,  Hegel  states  very  explicitly  in  the  smaller  Logic. 
In  the  twenty- third  section  he  asserts  that  thought  is  "no  private 
or  particular  state  or  act  of  the  subject,  but  rather  that  attitude 
of  consciousness  where  the  abstract  self,  freed  from  all  the  special 
limitations  to  which  its  ordinary  states  or  qualities  are  liable,  re- 
stricts itself  to  that  universal  action  in  which  it  is  identical  with  all 
individuals."  Furthermore,  he  constantly  insists  that  the  dialec^A 
tic  of  thought  is  really  der  Gang  der  Sache  selbst.  "It  is  not  the 
outward  action  of  subjective  thought,  but  the  personal  soul  of  the 
content,  which  unfolds  its  branches  and  fruit  organically."1  The 
question,  however,  at  once  arises,  Are  not  such  statements 
meaningless?  Is  the  "abstract  self,  freed  from  all  the  special 
limitations  to  which  its  ordinary  states  or  qualities  are  liable," 
anything  more  than  an  hypostasized  entity?  Do  we  know  any- 
thing about  the  'universal  action'  of  thought  apart  from  an  in- 
dividual experience?  Is  the  finite  knower  merely  a  passive  ob- 
server of  the  'march  of  the  object,'  or  of  the  organically  unfolding 
'soul  of  the  content'?  To  meet  the  objection  implied  in  these 
questions,  a  preliminary  consideration  is  necessary. 

Every  act  of  thought  may  be  looked  at  from  two  points  of 
view.  It  may  be  regarded  as  a  process  in  time,  that  is,  as  a 
mere  psychological  event,  or  as  a  meaning.  As  a  process  in 
time,  it  is  a  state  of  consciousness  among  other  such  states  to 
which  it  is  related  and  by  reference  to  which  it  may  be  ex- 
plained. As  a  meaning,  it  is  the  expression  of  the  relation  of 
subject  to  object,  the  expression  of  which  relation  gives  it  its 
significance  as  an  act  of  knowledge.  Neither  of  these  aspects 

lWerke,  Bd.  VIII,  p.  63  (Philosophy  of  Right,  trans.,  p.  37). 


10  THOUGHT  AND   REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

of  thought  can,  of  course,  be  neglected;  a  timeless  act  of  thought 
is  as  much  a  non-entity  as  a  meaningless  act  of  thought.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  two  aspects  must  not  be  confused ;  thought 
as  a  process  in  time  is  something  quite  different  from  thought  as 
a  meaning.  Both  points  of  view  are  legitimate  and,  indeed,  neces- 
sary in  dealing  with  concrete  mental  experience.  If,  now,  these 
ways  of  viewing  thought  be  the  standpoints  of  psychology  and 
epistemology,  respectively,  we  are  perfectly  right  in  saying  that, 
from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  thought  is  subjective  and 
particular,  while  from  the  standpoint  of  epistemology  it  is  trans- 
subjective.  As  a  psychological  process,  thought  is  subjective  and 
particular  for  the  simple  reason  that,  when  so  viewed,  it  is  nothing 
more  than  an  element  in  a  complex  presentation  which  at  a  par- 
ticular moment  makes  up  the  mental  life  of  the  individual  subject. 
Even  belief  in  a  trans-subjective  world,  the  psychologist  treats, 
as  Professor  Seth  Pringle-Pattison  says,  "simply  as  a  subjective 
fact;  he  analyzes  its  constitutents  and  tells  us  the  complex  ele- 
ments of  which  it  is  built  up ;  he  tells  us  with  great  precision  what 
we  do  believe,  but  so  far  as  he  is  a  pure  psychologist  he  does  not 
attempt  to  tell  us  whether  our  belief  is  true,  whether  we  have 
real  warrant  for  it."1  Epistemology,  on  the  contrary,  neces- 
sarily transcends  this  subjective  standpoint  of  psychology.  It 
deals,  not  with  the  knowing  experience  of  any  particular  mind, 
not  with  knowledge  as  it  is  possessed  by  any  particular  subject, 
but  with  knowledge  as  it  is  in  itself.  Epistemology  finds  its 
special  field  just  in  determining  the  validity  or  falsity  of  the  claims 
of  our  trans-subjective  belief.  Its  business  is  to  give  us  a  crite- 
rion of  truth,  to  investigate  the  subject-object  relation  within  ex- 
perience and  to  develop  its  implications.  In  doing  this  it  must 
neglect  the  particular  experiences,  or,  to  use  Professor  Bosan- 
quet's  phrase,  it  must  abstract  from  the  abstractions  of  psychol- 
ogy, and  fix  its  attention  upon  the  essential  nature  of  knowledge 
qua  knowledge.  It  does  not,  of  course,  deny  the  significance  of 
the  psychological  aspect  of  thought,  nor  does  it  try  to  escape  from 
the  implications  of  experience  when  read  from  that  angle  of 
vision.  It  simply  deals  with  thought  from  its  own  specific 

1  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  I,  p.  135. 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  II 

standpoint,  its  aim  being  to  handle  its  data  unencumbered  as 
much  as  possible  by  psychological  considerations.1 

Now,  as  I  understand  Hegel,  we  can  accuse  him  neither  of 
confusing  these  two  points  of  view,  nor  of  overlooking  one  in  his 
zeal  for  the  other.  As  has  been  pointed  out,  his  interest  in  the 
discussion  of  knowledge  is  primarily  epistemological  in  the  sense 
above  defined ;  and  he  keeps  consistently  to  this  point  of  depar- 
ture. He  sees  clearly  that,  from  this  point  of  view,  knowledge 
must  be  investigated  as  it  is  in  and  for  itself  and  freed  from  the 
prejudices  and  preconceptions  which  attach  to  it  in  individual 
minds;  if  an  adequate  standard  of  truth  is  to  be  attained,  rela- 
tivity in  knowledge  must  be  overcome.  But  it  should  be  very 
carefully  noted  that  Hegel  does  not,  at  any  rate  need  not,  forget 
that  thought  is  always  a  process  in  a  knowing  mind.  The  ob- 
jectivity which  he  claims  for  thought  in  the  category  of  absolute 
knowledge  is  claimed  for  the  thought  of  every  individual  who 
knows;  the  truth  of  absolute  experience,  truth  as  it  is  in  itself 
and  for  itself,  is  simply  the  truth  of  the  experiences  that  are  here 
and  now.  This  point  I  tried  to  emphasize  at  the  beginning  of  the 
discussion.  Thus  the  'abstract  self,'  freed  from  the  limitations 
of  its  ordinary  states  and  busy  in  its  universal  mode  of  action, 
turns  out  to  be  the  finite  self  making  an  unusually  strenuous 
effort  to  be  consistent.  Genuinely  objective  thought  is  not  the 
private  possession  of  A  or  B ;  it  is  rather  the  thought  activity  in 
which,  so  far  as  they  are  rational  creatures,  A  and  B  participate. 
Even  if  we  are  fully  convinced  that  Hegel  has  gone  too  far  in 
the  identification  of  the  finite  knower  with  the  Absolute,  still  we 
must  admit  the  legitimacy  and,  necessity  of  this  demand  of  the 
category  of  absolute  knowledge.  For  if  the  subjectivity  in  which 
experience  is  involved  by  the  Kantian  and  Fichtean  philosophies 
is  really  to  be  transcended,  experience  must  be  given  some  form 
of  genuine  objectivity;  and  if  that  form  of  objectivity  is  to  be 
found  in  thought,  then  thought  must  be  looked  upon  as  it  is  in 
its  essential  nature  and  not  as  it  appears  in  this  or  that  individual 
mind.  And  this,  it  would  seem,  is  all  that  Hegel  means  when  he 
says  that  truly  objective  thought  transcends  the  individual  ex- 
perience. 

lSee  Professor  Bosanquet's  discussion  on  this  point  in  Proceedings  of  the  Aristote- 
lian Society,  1905-1906,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  237  ff. 


12  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

The  second  factor  involved  in  the  conception  of  true  objec- 
tivity, namely,  the  capacity  of  thought  to  express  the  essential 
nature  of  its  object,  Hegel  shows  to  be  the  necessary  presupposi- 
tion of  all  knowing  experience.  Thought  must  disclose  the  con- 
stitution of  reality,  he  maintains,  otherwise  experience  is  doomed 
to  a  hopeless  dualism.  "The  truth  as  such,"  he  tells  us,  "is 
essentially  in  knowledge."1  "Only  in  so  far  as  reflection  has 
relation  to  the  Absolute  is  it  reason  and  its  activity  that  of 
true  knowledge  (Wisseri)"2  Every  individual  who  knows  does, 
by  virtue  of  that  very  fact,  transcend  the  dualism  which  seems 
to  exist  between  subject  and  object;  on  any  other  assumption  it 
is  not  easy  to  see  how  experience  can  be  brought  into  actual 
contact  with  ultimate  reality.  To  elaborate  this  argument  is  ex- 
actly what  Hegel  undertakes  in  the  Phenomenology.  He  shows 
there  by  dialectical  procedure  how  the  lowest  and  most  naive  at- 
titude of  consciousness  to  its  object  subsumes  the  opposition 
which  prima  facie  seems  such  a  barrier  to  the  comprehension  of 
reality;  such  subsumption  must  be  assumed,  or  we  shall  never  be 
able  to  say  that  experience  and  reality  are  one.  One  might  sum- 
marily say,  without  doing  violence  to  Hegel's  own  words,  that 
the  purpose  of  the  Phenomenology  is  to  show,  in  opposition  to 
the  Kantian  philosophy,  why  the  Ding-an-sich  must  be  known 
and  how  it  can  be  known.  It  must  be  known,  because  this  is 
the  presupposition  of  experience  from  its  earliest  and  simplest 
stages;  it  can  be  known,  because  thought  is  no  merely  subjec- 
tive and  private  process  going  on  in  our  heads,  but  in  its  very 
essence  is  a  significant  relation  to  objects.  Thus  Hegel  solves 
the  problem  of  the  opposition  between  subject  and  object  by 
pointing  out  that  the  problem  is  really  made  by  our  own  abstract 
procedure  in  dealing  with  experience.  In  point  of  fact,  he  tells 
us,  there  is  no  such  opposition ;  on  the  contrary,  the  very  fact  that 
we  can  have  significant  knowledge  forces  us  to  the  conclusion 
that  thought  is  truly  objective,  and  that  the  object  is  in  reality  as 
it  is  in  knowledge. 

Hegel's  position  on  this  point  can,  perhaps,  be  more  clearly 
understood  when  contrasted  with  Lotze's  view.  In  his  Logic 
Lotze  summarizes  his  position  thus:  "We  have  convinced  our- 

lWerke,  Bd.  V,  p.  237.  *Werke,  Bd.  I,  p.  178. 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  13 

selves  that  this  changing  world  of  our  ideas  is  the  sole  material 
given  us  to  work  upon;  that  truth  and  the  knowledge  of  truth 
consist  only  in  the  laws  of  interconnection  which  are  found  to 
obtain  universally  within  a  given  set  of  ideas."1  Now  when  we 
recall  that  these  ideas  are  for  Lotze  more  or  less  subjective, 
mere  'tools'  by  means  of  which  we  somehow  come  in  contact 
with  reality,  but  through  which  the  essence  of  objects  can  never 
be  known,  the  contrast  between  his  position  and  Hegel's  is 
plain.  According  to  the  one,  we  are  shut  off  from  reality  by 
means  of  the  very  tools  we  vainly  endeavor  to  work  with ;  reality 
is  a  realm  'whose  margin  fades  forever  and  forever'  as  we  move. 
According  to  the  other,  we  are  never  out  of  touch  with  reality, 
since  to  know  is  ipso  facto  to  know  the  essential  nature  of  the 
objects  of  knowledge.  To  the  former,  truth  is  nothing  more 
than  consistency  within  a  given  set  of  ideas;  to  the  latter,  truth 
is  nothing  less  than  reality  itself.  In  a  word,  on  the  theory  of 
Lotze  thought  is  after  all  still  subjective,  still  confined  to  the 
abstract  realm  of  bare  universals,  impotent  to  overtake  the 
phantom  reality  it  pursues:  Hegel  teaches,  on  the  contrary, 
that  thought  is  essentially  objective,  that  form  and  content  inter- 
penetrate, that  the  process  of  knowledge  is  the  process  of  things. 
And  this  conception  of  the  objectivity  of  thought,  Hegel  would 
urge,  is  a  necessary  presupposition  of  experience,  unless  indeed 
we  are  willing  to  abide  by  the  consequences  of  an  epistemologi- 
cal  dualism. 

But  if  thought  expresses  the  essence  of  its  object,  then  thought 
ipso  facto  comprehends  its  object  and  so  exhausts  reality.  This 
implication  of  his  doctrine  of  the  objectivity  of  thought  Hegel 
not  only  recognizes  but  insists  upon.  "Conception  is  the  pen- 
etration of  the  object,  which  is  then  no  longer  opposed  to  me. 
From  it  I  have  taken  its  own  peculiar  nature,  which  it  had  as  an 
independent  object  in  opposition  to  me.  As  Adam  said  to  Eve, 
'Thou  art  flesh  of  my  flesh  and  bone  of  my  bone,'  so  says  the 
Spirit,  'This  object  is  spirit  of  my  spirit,  and  all  alienation  has 
disappeared.'"2  This  same  idea  Hegel  has  in  mind  when  he 
speaks  of  thought  as  begreifendes  Denken.  "Begreifendes  Denken" 

!Bk.  Ill,  Chap,  i,  §  309. 

zWerke,  Bd.  VIII,  p.  34  (Philosophy  of  Right,  trans.,  p.  n). 


14          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

says  Professor  McGilvary,  "is  grasping,  clutching  thought, 
thought  that  grips  its  object  as  its  own  inalienable  possession. 
Perhaps  we  might  translate  das  begreifende  Denken  by  the  phrase 
'object-appropriating  thought';  for  the  logical  relation  of  such 
thought  to  its  object  is  analogous  to  the  legal  relation  of  the 
master  to  the  slave;  the  slave  had  no  independent  status;  he 
stood  only  in  his  master,  who  engulfed  him."1  Again,  the  one 
distinguishing  feature  between  what  Hegel  terms  'finite'  and  'in- 
finite' thought  is  that  the  latter  destroys  the  opposition  between 
form  and  content,  which  opposition  the  former  never  transcends; 
as  Hegel  puts  it,  'finite'  thought  is  "subjective,  arbitrary,  and  ac- 
cidental," while  'infinite'  thought  is  what  alone  "can  get  really 
in  touch  with  the  supreme  and  true."2  And,  of  course,  it  is  'in- 
finite' thought  with  which  Hegel  has  to  do  in  his  category  of 
absolute  knowledge.  Furthermore,  in  the  Introduction  to  the 
larger  Logic  Hegel  argues  that  to  separate  the  form  and  content  of 
knowledge  is  to  presuppose  an  external  objective  world  which  is 
independent  of  thought;  and  this,  he  objects,  is  unjustifiable.3 
And  later  in  the  same  Introduction,  we  read:  "In  logic  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  thought  about  something  which  lies  indepen- 
dently outside  of  thought  as  the  basis  of  it."4  Finally,  in  the 
smaller  Logic,  he  asserts:  "In  the  negative  unity  of  the  Idea,  the 
infinite  overlaps  and  includes  the  finite,  thought  overlaps  being, 
subjectivity  overlaps  objectivity."5  Other  passages  bearing  on 
this  point  might  be  quoted,  did  it  seem  necessary;  but  the  above 
passages  state  very  clearly  Hegel's  position.  In  fact,  the  posi- 
tion is  inevitably  involved  in  his  whole  conception  of  the  objec- 
tivity of  knowledge.  Truly  objective  knowledge  cannot  have 
opposed  to  it  an  unaccountable  residuum  of  fact,  which  it  is  un- 
able to  comprehend  or  interpret;  on  the  contrary,  it  must  be 
conterminous  with  reality. 

The  following  quotation  from  Mr.  McTaggart  presents  an 
admirable  antithesis  to  Hegel's  position  here.  "Thought  is  a 
process  of  mediation  and  relation,  and  implies  something  imme- 
diate to  be  related,  which  cannot  be  found  in  thought. 
Even  if  a  stage  of  thought  could  be  conceived  as  existing,  in 

1 Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  VI,  p.  502. 

zEnc.,  §  19.  sWerke,  Bd.  Ill,  p.  26. 

*Ibid.,  p.  33.  *Enc.,  §  215. 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  15 

which  it  was  self-subsistent,  and  in  which  it  had  no  reference  to 
any  data  ...  at  any  rate  this  is  not  the  ordinary  thought  of  com- 
mon life.  And  as  the  dialectic  process  professes  to  start  from  a 
basis  common  to  every  one,  ...  it  is  certain  that  it  will  be  neces- 
sary for  thought,  in  the  dialectic  process,  to  have  some  relation  to 
data  given  immediately,  and  independent  of  that  thought  itself."1 
It  makes  no  difference  that  this  statement  is  given  by  the  critic  as 
an  interpretation  of  Hegel;  it  is  in  truth  exactly  contrary  to 
Hegel's  view  of  the  matter.  Thought,  as  Hegel  conceives  of  it, 
certainly  has  no  data  opposed  to,  and  independent  of  it;  nor  is  it 
merely  a  process  of  mediation  and  relation  among  phenomena 
external  to  it.  It  bears  no  relation  whatever  to  immediately  given 
data,  'nuclei'  of  being,  which  lie  outside  of  and  beyond  it,  for 
there  are  no  such.  On  the  contrary,  it  transcends  this  dualism, 
and  always  finds  itself  'at  home'  in  its  object  from  which  every 
trace  of  alienation  has  disappeared.2  Perhaps  I  can  best  bring 
out  the  contrast  between  Hegel's  real  position  and  that  attributed 
to  him  by  his  critic  by  letting  him  once  more  speak  for  himself: 
"If  under  the  process  of  knowledge  we  figure  to  ourselves  an 
external  operation  in  which  it  is  brought  into  a  merely  mechanical 
relation  to  an  object,  that  is  to  say,  remains  outside  it,  and  is  only 
externally  applied  to  it,  knowledge  is  presented  in  such  a  relation 
as  a  particular  thing  for  itself,  so  that  it  may  well  be  that  its  forms 
have  nothing  in  common  with  the  qualities  of  the  object;  and 
thus,  when  it  concerns  itself  with  an  object,  it  remains  only  in  its 
own  forms,  and  does  not  reach  the  essential  qualities  of  the  object, 
that  is  to  say,  does  not  become  real  knowledge  of  it.  In  such  a 
relation  knowledge  is  determined  as  finite,  and  as  of  the  finite;  in 
its  object  there  remains  something  essentially  inner,  whose  notion 
is  thus  unattainable  by  and  foreign  to  knowledge,  which  finds 
here  its  limit  and  its  end,  and  is  on  that  account  limited  and 
finite."  So  far  we  have  a  statement  of  the  critic's  view  with  its 

lStudies  in  the  Hegelian  Dialectic,  §  14.  Compare  with  this  conception  of 
thought  Lotze's  view  of  thought's  first  activity  as  the  process  by  means  of  which  the 
immediately  given  impressions  of  sense  are  converted  into  ideas  (Logic,  trans.,  Vol. 
I,  pp.  13  ff.). 

2Cognition  is  'finite'  because  its  content  has  the  appearance  of  a  datum,  a  'given,' 
independent  of  it  and  existing  in  its  own  right.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  'Notion,' 
however,  the  content  is  no  longer  regarded  as  a  foreign  element;  it  is  rationalized. 
(Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  V,  pp.  267-268.) 


1 6          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

attendant  difficulties.  By  way  of  criticism  and  exposition  of  his 
own  position,  Hegel  continues:  "But  to  take  such  a  relation  as 
the  only  one,  or  as  final  or  absolute,  is  a  purely  made-up  and  un- 
justifiable assumption  of  the  Understanding.  Real  knowledge, 
inasmuch  as  it  does  not  remain  outside  the  object,  but  in  point  of 
fact  occupies  itself  with  it,  must  be  immanent  in  the  object,  the 
proper  movement  of  its  nature,  only  expressed  in  the  form  of 
thought  and  taken  up  into  consciousness."1  This  passage  is 
self-explanatory,  and  comment  on  it  seems  superfluous.  In  it 
Hegel  has  simply  pointed  out  the  inevitable  dualism  involved  in 
the  position  which  Mr.  McTaggart  has  attributed  to  him;  and  in 
opposition  to  such  a  position  he  has  stated  his  own  more  objective 
standpoint. 

An  objection  which  arises  just  here  seems  prima  facie  unan- 
swerable. If  it  be  true  that  thought  actually  does  exhaust  reality, 
then  it  must  be  that  thought,  or  knowing  experience,  and  reality 
coincide.  But  can  such  a  view  possibly  be  seriously  entertained? 
Is  it  not  nonsense  to  say  that  thought  is  co-extensive  with  the 
real,  when  so  much  of  our  every-day  experience,  our  hopes,  our 
fears,  our  loves,  our  hates,  fall  outside  the  thinking  process? 
Can  one  be  so  mad  as  to  attempt  to  reduce  existential  reality  to 
terms  of  ideas?  Lotze  has  put  the  objection  very  forcibly  thus: 
"Nothing  is  simpler  than  to  convince  ourselves  that  every  appre- 
hending intelligence  can  only  see  things  as  they  look  to  it  when 
it  perceives  them,  not  as  they  look  when  no  one  perceives  them; 
he  who  demands  a  knowledge  which  should  be  more  than  a  per- 
fectly connected  and  consistent  system  of  ideas  about  the  thing, 
a  knowledge  which  should  actually  exhaust  the  thing  itself,  is 
no  longer  asking  for  knowledge  at  all,  but  for  something  entirely 
unintelligible."2  Mr.  Bradley,  in  a  classic  passage,  has  voiced 
the  same  feeling:  "Unless  thought  stands  for  something  that 
falls  beyond  mere  intelligence,  if  'thinking'  is  not  used  with 
some  strange  implication  that  never  was  part  of  the  meaning  of 
the  word,  a  lingering  scruple  still  forbids  us  to  believe  that 
reality  can  ever  be  purely  rational.  .  .  .  The  notion  that  existence 
could  be  the  same  as  understanding  strikes  as  cold  and  ghost- 

lWerke,  Bd.  XII,  pp.  267-268  (Philosophy  of  Religion,  trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  163). 
*Logie,  Bk.  Ill,  chap,  i,  §  308. 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  17 

like  as  the  dreariest  materialism.  That  the  glory  of  this  world  in 
the  end  is  appearance  leaves  the  world  more  glorious,  if  we  feel 
it  is  a  show  of  some  fuller  splendour;  but  the  sensuous  curtain 
is  a  deception  and  a  cheat,  if  it  hides  some  colourless  movement 
of  atoms,  some  spectral  woof  of  impalpable  abstractions,  or  un- 
earthly ballet  of  bloodless  categories."1  Now  Hegel's  answer  to 
this  objection  is,  I  think,  found  in  the  second  characteristic  of 
thought  as  he  has  denned  it  for  us  in  absolute  knowledge;  and 
this  we  shall  proceed  at  once  to  examine. 

Thought,  Hegel  argues,  is  not  mere  abstract  cognition,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  is  truly  universal.  In  answer  to  Mr.  Bradley 
he  would  say  that  thought  does  stand  for  something  which 
falls  beyond  mere  intelligence.  That  is  to  say,  actual  concrete 
thought,  in  Professor  Bosanquet's  phraseology,  is  a  process,  not 
of  selective  omission,  but  of  constructive  analysis;  its  universals 
are  syntheses  of  differences.2  In  Hegel's  own  words:  "The 
Notion  is  generally  associated  in  our  minds  with  abstract  gener- 
ality, and  on  that  account  it  is  often  described  as  a  general  con- 
ception. We  speak,  accordingly,  of  the  notions  of  color,  plant, 
animal,  etc.  They  are  supposed  to  be  arrived  at  by  neglect- 
ing the  particular  features  which  distinguish  the  different  colors, 
plants,  and  animals  from  each  other,  and  by  retaining  those  com- 
mon to  them  all.  This  is  the  aspect  of  the  Notion  which  is 
familiar  to  the  understanding;  and  feeling  is  in  the  right  when  it 
stigmatizes  such  hollow  and  empty  notions  as  mere  phantoms 
and  shadows.  But  the  universal  of  the  Notion  is  not  a  mere  sum 
of  features  common  to  several  things,  confronted  by  a  particular 
which  enjoys  an  existence  of  its  own.  It  is,  on  the  contrary, 
self-particularizing  or  self-specifying,  and  with  undimmed  clear- 
ness finds  itself  at  home  in  its  antithesis.  For  the  sake  both  of 
cognition  and  of  our  practical  conduct,  it  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance that  the  real  universal  should  not  be  confused  with 
what  is  merely  held  in  common.  All  those  charges  which  the 
devotees  of  feeling  make  against  thought,  and  especially  against 
philosophic  thought,  and  the  reiterated  statement  that  it  is  dan- 
gerous to  carry  thought  to  what  they  call  too  great  lengths, 

Principles  of  Logic,  p.  533. 

2See  Bosanquet's  Logic,  Vol.  I,  pp.  63  ff. 


18          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

originate  in  the  confusion  of  these  two  things."1  In  other 
words,  universality  may  mean  two  very  different  things.  On 
the  one  hand,  it  may  indicate  nothing  but  abstract  generality 
which  is  arrived  at  by  neglecting  the  marks  peculiar  to  particular 
objects.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  mean  the  synthetic  analysis 
of  the  particulars,  and  so  include  within  itself  the  essential  char- 
acteristics of  them.  If  one  only  remembers  this  distinction,  and 
remembers  that  the  true  universal  of  thought  is  the  subsumption, 
not  the  annihilation,  of  the  particular,  then,  Hegel  would  say, 
there  should  be  no  objection  raised  against  the  assertion  that  ulti- 
mately the  real  is  comprehended  by  thought.  For,  in  this 
meaning  of  thought,  experience  and  thinking  experience  are 
synonymous  terms. 

There  are  various  passages  in  which  Hegel  emphasizes  this 
aspect  of  thought  by  insisting  that  thought  is  not  one  mental 
faculty  among  others  coordinate  with  it,  but  that  it  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  universality  in  mind  and  includes  within  itself  the  other 
so-called  mental  faculties  as  essential  elements.  In  his  lectures 
on  the  History  of  Philosophy  occurs  a  criticism  of  Kant  which  is 
very  suggestive  in  this  connection:  "With  Kant  the  thinking 
understanding  and  sensuousness  are  both  something  particular, 
and  they  are  merely  united  in  an  external,  superficial  way,  just  as 
a  piece  of  wood  and  a  leg  might  be  bound  together  with  a  cord."2 
Against  any  such  atomistic  conception  of  the  mind  Hegel  would 
insist:  "Even  our  sense  of  the  mind's  living  unity  naturally 
protests  against  any  attempt  to  break  it  up  into  different  faculties, 
forces,  or,  what  comes  to  the  same  thing,  activities,  conceived 
as  independent  of  each  other."3  But  he  would  go  further 
than  this.  Not  only  does  he  maintain  that  thought  is  not  one 
element  in  an  aggregate  of  disparate  parts;  he  also  urges  that 
thought  is  rather  the  very  life  of  the  one  organic  whole  which 
we  call  mind,  "its  very  unadulterated  self."4  For  example,  in 
the  smaller  Logic  he  asserts  that  thought  is  present  in  every 
perception  and  in  every  mental  activity.5  "We  simply  cannot 
escape  from  thought,"  he  elsewhere  says,  "it  is  present  in 
sensation,  in  cognition,  and  knowledge,  in  the  instincts,  and  in 

*Enc.,  §  163,  lecture-note  (i). 

*Werke,  Bd.  XV,  p.  516  (trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  441). 

*Enc.,  §  379.  *Enc.,  §  n.  *Ibid.,  §  24. 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 

^ 


•J 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  19 

volition,  in  so  far  as  these  are  attributes  of  a  human  mind."1  In 
the  Philosophy  of  Right  we  read:  "Spirit  in  general  is  thought, 
and  by  thought  man  is  distinguished  from  the  animal.  But  we 
must  not  imagine  that  man  is  on  one  side  thinking  and  on  another 
side  willing,  as  though  he  had  will  in  one  pocket  and  thought 
in  another.  Such  an  idea  is  vain.  The  distinction  between 
thought  and  will  is  only  that  between  a  theoretical  and  a  prac- 
tical relation.  They  are  not  two  separate  faculties.  The  will 
is  a  special  way  of  thinking;  it  is  thought  translating  itself  into 
reality;  it  is  the  impulse  of  thought  to  give  itself  reality."2  The 
conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  "in  the  human  being  there 
in  only  one  reason,  in  feeling,  volition,  and  thought."3 

Overlooking  this  conception  of  universality  in  Hegel's  doctrine 
of  thought,  Mr.  McTaggart  criticizes  him  for  holding  "that  the 
highest  activity  of  Spirit,  in  which  all  others  are  transcended  and 
swallowed  up,  is  that  of  pure  thought."4  Such  a  contention,  we 
are  informed,  ignores  a  fact  which  Lotze  has  emphasized  in  many 
parts  of  his  system.  And  that  fact  is  "that  Spirit  has  two  other 
aspects  besides  thought — namely,  volition  and  feeling — which 
are  as  important  as  thought,  and  which  cannot  be  deduced  from 
it,  nor  explained  by  it."5  Now  this  criticism  assumes  that  Hegel 
actually  tried  to  reduce  the  contents  of  mind  to  terms  of  abstract 
cognition.  But,  as  we  have  just  seen,  such  an  assumption  is  en- 
tirely groundless.  Hegel  never  thought  of  reducing  will  and 
feeling  to  knowledge,  meaning  by  knowledge  what  his  critic 
means  by  it,  namely,  one  of  several  coordinate  elements  within 
the  life  of  mind.  What  Hegel  means  by  thought,  when  he  asserts 
that  it  is  conterminous  with  experience,  is  simply  that  principle 
by  virtue  of  which  experience  is  an  organic  and  unitary  whole.  It 
is  that  life  of  mind  itself,  which  includes  within  itself  feeling,  will, 
and  cognition,  and  which  finds  its  very  being  in  the  expression  of 
this  living  unity  of  the  mind's  activity.6  For  Hegel,  there  is  "only 
one  reason,  in  feeling,  volition,  and  thought." 

iWerke,  Bd.  IX,  p.  12. 

*Werke,  Bd.  VIII,  p.  33  (trans.,  p.  n).       3Enc.,  §  471. 

4Studies  in  the  Hegelian  Dialectic,  §  104.          6Loc.  cit. 

6See,  in  this  connection,  an  article  entitled  "Experience  and  Thought"  by  Pro- 
fessor Creighton  in  The  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  XV,  pp.  482  ff.  "Thinking 
or  rationality  is  not  limited  to  the  process  of  abstract  cognition,  but  it  includes 


20          THOUGHT  AND   REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

After  all,  the  difference  between  Hegel  and  his  critics  on  this 
point  is  not  so  great  as  might  at  first  appear.  Mr.  McTaggart  is 
perfectly  willing  to  admit  that  it  is  not  impossible  that  these 
elements  of  mind  "might  be  found  to  be  aspects  of  a  unity  which 
embraces  and  transcends  them  all";  but  he  is  unwilling  to  call 
this  unity  thought.1  Mr.  Bradley,  likewise,  demands  an  ultimate 
synthesis;  but  it  must  fall  beyond  the  category  of  rationality.2 
Though  Lotze  states  it  as  his  conviction  "that  the  nature  of 
things  does  not  consist  in  thoughts,  and  that  thinking  is  not  able 
to  grasp  it,"  yet  he  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "perhaps  the  whole 
mind  experiences  in  other  forms  of  its  action  and  passion  the  es- 
sential meaning  of  all  being  and  action."3  Thus  it  would  seem 
that  the  real  quarrel  between  Hegel  and  the  critics  is  concerning 
the  real  nature  of  the  synthesis.  What  the  critics  vaguely  term 
an  ultimate  unity,  Hegel  prefers  to  call  thought,  reason,  or  Spirit. 
The  former  try  to  find  a  synthesis  of  elements  which  they  have 
defined  as  practically  exclusive  and  independent,  though,  of 
course,  not  ontologically  separable  from  each  other;  and  they 
seek  this  synthetic  principle  in  feeling  or  intuition, — something 
ultra-rational.  Hegel,  on  the  other  hand,  insists  that  mind  is  an 
organic  unity,  and  that  it  is  such  only  by  virtue  of  its  own  most 
characteristic  activity;  it  is  a  one  reason.  Every  concrete  act  of 
knowledge,  he  argues,  is  an  activity  of  the  whole  mind;  and  this 
unitary,  synthetic  activity  can  be  made  intelligible  and  given  true 
objectivity,  not,  as  the  critics  seem  to  maintain,  in  terms  of  intu- 
ition or  feeling,  but  only  in  terms  of  rationality.  And  reflection 
on  the  point  will,  I  think,  convince  us  that  Hegel  is  in  the  right.4 

feeling  and  will,  and  in  the  course  of  its  development  carries  these  along  with  it. 
There  is,  of  course,  no  such  thing  as  what  we  have  called  abstract  cognition;  but 
the  different  moments  are  all  united  in  the  concrete  experience  which  we  may  name 
the  life  of  thought"  (pp.  487-488). 

xCf.  especially  op.  cit.,  §  206. 

2Cf.  Appearance  and  Reality,  Chap.  xv. 

*Microcosmus,  Bk.  VIII,  Chap,  i,  §  8. 

4Mr.  Bradley  would  seem  to  think  that  discussion  on  this  point  is  a  matter  of 
terminology.  For  example,  in  Appearance  and  Reality,  he  says  that,  if  one  chooses, 
one  may  call  that  fuller  experience,  which  is  an  adequate  synthesis  of  the  real, 
thought.  "But,"  he  adds,  "if  anyone  else  prefers  another  term,  such  as  feeling  or 
will,  he  would  be  equally  justified.  For  the  result  is  a  whole  state  which  both  in- 
cludes and  goes  beyond  each  element;  and  to  speak  of  it  as  simply  one  of  them 
seems  playing  with  phrases"  (p.  171).  I  am  persuaded,  however,  that  the  point  is 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  21 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  expose  another  aspect  of  the  current 
misconception  of  Hegel's  doctrine  of  universality.  The  miscon- 
ception concerns  Hegel's  supposed  identification  of  thought  and 
being,  and  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  most  prolific  sources  of  adverse 
criticism  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy.  I  refer  to  the  prevalent 
view,  implied  in  the  above  quotations  from  Mr.  Bradley  and 
Lotze,  which  Professor  Seth  Pringle-Pattison  expresses  thus: 
"The  result  of  Hegel's  procedure  would  really  be  to  sweep  'exis- 
tential reality'  off  the  board  altogether,  under  the  persuasion, 
apparently,  that  a  full  statement  of  all  the  thought-relations  that 
constitute  our  knowledge  of  the  thing  is  equivalent  to  the  existent 
thing  itself.  On  the  contrary,  it  may  be  confidently  asserted 
that  there  is  no  more  identity  of  Knowing  and  Being  with  an 
infinity  of  such  relations  than  there  was  with  one."1 

Now  this  idea  that  Hegel  tried  to  reduce  things  to  pure  thought 
about  things,  or  that  he  for  a  moment  maintained  that  thought 
could  possibly  be  the  existent  thing,  seems  to  me  a  monstrous 
misinterpretation  of  his  real  meaning.  It  is  inconsistent  with 
the  presupposition  of  his  whole  philosophy,  namely,  that  reality  is 
essentially  a  subject-object  relation.  It  is  also  inconsistent  with 
the  explicit  statements  quoted  above  concerning  the  universality 
of  the  Notion,  which  always  involves  particularity.  And,  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  he  emphatically  repudiates  such  a 
view  in  his  account  of  mediation  and  the  function  of  the  negative 
in  thought.  But,  apart  from  these  facts,  it  seems  that  we  might 
credit  Hegel  with  sufficient  acumen  to  see  the  inherent  absurdity 
of  such  a  position.  Surely  he  saw  the  contradiction  involved  in 
an  attempt  to  attain  by  thought  an  ideal  which  would  result  in 
the  annihilation  of  thought  itself.  Indeed,  was  it  not  Hegel  who 
first  impressed  upon  us  the  fact  that  knowledge  always  requires 
an  object,  and  that,  if  that  object  be  taken  away,  knowledge 
itself  ceases  to  be?  As  Professor  Jones  has  said:  "It  is  incon- 

more  fundamental  than  such  an  attitude  indicates.  And  I  am  also  persuaded  that 
he  who  would  escape  the  conclusion  that  the  abstract  particular  has  a  part  in 
ultimate  reality  must  ultimately  concede  Hegel's  contention, — always  provided 
we  are  in  earnest  about  equating  reality  with  experience.  See  Hegel,  Werke, 
Bd.  XI,  pp.  129-130. 

1Hegelianism  and  Personality,  pp.  I33-I34-  I  quote  from  the  second  edition. 
Cf.  also  McTaggart,  op.  cit.,  §§  194  ff.  To  mediate  the  'this,'  he  asserts,  would  be 
to  destroy  it.  Cf.  Lotze,  Logic,  Book  III,  Chap,  i,  §  308. 


22          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

sistent  with  the  possibility  of  knowledge  that  it  should  be  the 
reality  it  represents :  knowledge  is  incompatible  alike  with  sinking 
the  real  in  the  ideal,  and  the  ideal  in  the  real."1  And  I  think 
we  are  safe  in  saying  that  Hegel  was  well  aware  of  this  truth; 
his  essential  disagreement  with  Spinoza  is  that  in  the  Spinozistic 
philosophy  object  is  reduced  to  and  identified  with  subject. 

Hegel  seems  to  have  taken  special  pains  that  he  should  not 
be  misunderstood  on  this  point.  The  passages  already  quoted 
might  be  paralleled  with  others  just  as  positive.  I  shall  content 
myself,  however,  with  adding  only  two  which  show,  as  plainly  as 
words  can  show,  that  the  author  was  not  an  advocate  of  the 
theory  of  abstract  identity.  The  first  of  these  is  to  be  found  in 
the  eighty-second  section  of  the  smaller  Logic:  "If  we  say  that 
the  absolute  is  the  unity  of  subjective  and  objective,  we  are 
undoubtedly  in  the  right,  but  so  far  one-sided,  as  we  enunciate 
the  unity  only  and  lay  the  accent  upon  it,  forgetting  that  in  re- 
ality the  subjective  and  objective  are  not  merely  identical  but  also 
distinct."  In  the  Philosophy  of  Mind  is  found  the  other  passage, 
which  so  well  forestalls  the  above  criticism  and  so  forcefully 
emphasizes  the  necessity  of  distinguishing  between  merely  formal 
identity  and  concrete  unity  that  I  may  be  pardoned  for  quoting  it 
at  length:  "The  close  of  philosophy  is  not  the  place,  even  in  a 
general  exoteric  discussion,  to  waste  a  word  on  what  a  'Notion' 
means.  But  as  the  view  taken  of  this  relation  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  view  taken  of  philosophy  generally  and  with  all 
imputations  against  it,  we  may  still  add  the  remark  that  though 
philosophy  certainly  has  to  do  with  unity  in  general,  it  is  not 
however  with  abstract  unity,  mere  identity,  and  the  empty  abso- 
lute, but  with  concrete  unity  (the  Notion) ,  and  that  in  its  whole 
course  it  has  to  do  with  nothing  else;  that  each  step  in  its  ad- 
vance is  a  peculiar  term  or  phase  of  this  concrete  unity,  and  that 
the  deepest  and  last  expression  of  unity  is  the  unity  of  absolute 
mind  itself.  Would-be  judges  and  critics  of  philosophy  might 
be  recommended  to  familiarize  themselves  with  these  phases  of 
unity  and  to  take  the  trouble  to  get  acquainted  with  them.  .  .  . 
But  they  show  so  little  acquaintance  with  them  .  .  .  that,  when 

1Philosophy  of  Lotze,  p.  273.  Cf.  Bosanquet,  Logic,  Vol.  II,  p.  207:  "In  an 
absolute  tautology  which  excludes  or  omits  difference,  identity  itself  disappears 
and  the  judgment  vanishes  with  it." 


THOUGHT  AS  OBJECTIVE  AND    UNIVERSAL.  23 

they  hear  of  unity — and  relation  ipso  facto  implies  unity — they 
rather  stick  fast  at  quite  abstract  indeterminate  unity,  and  lose 
sight  of  the  chief  point  of  interest — the  special  mode  in  which 
the  unity  is  qualified.  Hence  all  they  can  say  about  philosophy 
is  that  dry  identity  is  its  principle  and  result,  and  that  it  is  the 
system  of  identity.  Sticking  fast  to  the  undigested  thought  of 
identity,  they  have  laid  hands  on,  not  the  concrete  unity,  the 
notion  and  content  of  philosophy,  but  rather  its  reverse."1  If  in 
these  passages  Hegel  does  not  deny  any  attempt  to  arrive  at  the 
blank  identification  of  thought  and  being,  of  subject  and  object, 
and  if  in  them  he  does  not  criticize  such  a  goal  as  an  essentially 
mistaken  ideal  of  philosophical  inquiry,  then  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned the  import  of  the  passages  is  lost.  Surely  by  concrete 
unity  he  means  something  quite  different  from  abstract  identity, 
— and  concrete  unity  is  that  with  which  philosophy,  as  he  con- 
ceives it,  has  to  do. 

It  seems  only  fair  to  insist  that  such  considerations  as  the  pre- 
ceding be  taken  into  account  before  Hegel  is  accused  of  at- 
tempting that  which  is  at  once  impossible  and  absurd.  He  never 
had  any  idea  of  reducing  the  'choir  of  heaven'  and  the  multifarious 
passions  of  the  human  soul  to  a  'ballet  of  bloodless  categories.' 
Such  an  attempt  would  have  seemed  to  Hegel  as  nonsensical  as 
it.seems  to  his  critics.  When  he  speaks  of  the  unity  of  thought 
and  being,  he  always  means  identity  in  difference,  and  never  the 
undifferentiated  identity  of  Schelling's  system.  And  when  he 
asserts  that  subject  comprehends  object,  he  does  not  mean  to 
reduce  experience  to  abstract  subject,  as  did  Spinoza.  He  does 
indeed  insist  upon  unity,  but  it  is  always  upon  concrete  unity, 
the  unity  of  the  'Notion';  and  this  unity  does  not  annihilate  or 
even  harm  its  differences.  In  a  word,  Hegel  transcends  dualism, 
and  yet,  at  the  same  time,  does  justice  to  the  duality  within  and 
essential  to  experience.  He  neither  denies  nor  attempts  to  explain 
away  the  factual  side  of  experience;  he  simply  denies  that  an 
inexplicable  datum  has  any  part  or  lot  within  experience.  Not 
immediacy,  but  abstract  immediacy,  immediacy  apart  from  inter- 
pretation, is  unreal. 

This  chapter  may  be  brought  to  an  end  by  an  attempt  to  state 

*Enc.,  §  573- 


24          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

in  one  paragraph  its  essential  points.  Hegel's  doctrine  of  thought, 
philosophic  thought,  is  given  in  the  category  of  absolute  knowl- 
edge, which  is  arrived  at  through  the  procedure  of  the  Phenome- 
nology of  Spirit.  The  conception  is  thus  based  directly  upon  our 
actual  knowing  experience,  and  claims  to  give  us  an  account  of 
thought  as  it  essentially  is.  Thought,  as  here  denned,  is  genuinely 
objective,  transcending  the  relativity  of  individual  experiences 
and  being  the  determination  of  things  as  they  are  in  themselves. 
But  this  is  not  to  say  that  reality  is  identical  with  abstract  cogni- 
tion. For  thought  finds  its  capacity  to  express  the  real  in  the  fact 
that  its  universals  are  always  the  syntheses  of  differences,  and  not 
the  blank  universals  of  purely  formal  logic.  Actual  living  thought 
includes  within  itself  the  data  of  so-called  intuitive  perception,  of 
feeling,  of  volition,  of  cognition,  and  it  is  adequately  conceived  of 
only  as  this  unifying  principle  of  experience ;  it  is  the  living  unity 
of  mind,  the  one  reason  which  appears  in  every  mental  activity. 
Therefore,  when  Hegel  teaches  that  thought  is  conterminous 
with  the  real,  he  is  simply  stating  the  doctrine  that  experience 
and  reality  are  one. 


\ 


CHAPTER   II. 
THE  PROCESS    OF    THOUGHT:  MEDIATION  AND  NEGATION. 

In  criticism  of  Hegel's  position  that  the  science  of  Philosophy 
can  adequately  express  the  nature  of  the  ultimately  real,  Mr.  Mc- 
Taggart  says:  "Philosophy  itself  is  knowledge,  it  is  neither  action 
nor  feeling.  And  there  seems  nothing  in  Hegel's  account  of  it  to 
induce  us  to  change  the  meaning  of  the  word  in  this  respect."1  I 
quote  this  criticism  because  it  contains  an  assumption  which  I  wish 
to  challenge,  and  thus  sets  the  problem  for  the  present  chapter. 
The  assumption  is  that  philosophical  thought,  as  Hegel  defines  it, 
is  bare  cognition  to  which  the  other  aspects  of  the  mental  life 
bear  only  an  external  relation,  that  it  is  simply  one  among  other 
elements  coordinate  with  it,  and  that,  consequently,  it  can  at 
most  be  only  a  mediating  activity  among  these  other  elements  of 
experience  which  forever  lie  beyond  and  external  to  it.  It  is 
the  justice  of  this  assumption  which  the  following  pages  will  call 
in  question.  We  have  already  seen,  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
that  such  a  position  is  foreign  to  Hegel's  system,  and  that  philos- 
ophy for  him  is  action  and  feeling  as  well  as  cognition.  But  it 
may  be  well  to  emphasize  the  fact  from  another  point  of  view. 
So  we  now  address  ourselves  to  the  task  of  establishing  the  thesis 
that  Hegel's  account  of  philosophy  does  force  us  to  give  to  the 
word  a  meaning  essentially  different  from  that  which  the  above 
criticism  attaches  to  it.  We  shall  support  this  thesis  with  an 
exposition  of  the  process  of  philosophical  knowledge  as  it  is 
presented  in  Hegel's  doctrine  of  mediation  and  negation. 

In  the  preface  to  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit?  Hegel  has  been 
at  pains  to  point  out  that,  if  we  are  to  appreciate  what  he  means 
by  philosophy  and  the  standpoint  which  it  assumes,  we  must 
make  an  effort  to  understand  what  he  means  by  absolute  knowl- 
edge and  by  mediation.  In  the  preceding  chapter  we  investi- 
gated the  nature  and  significance  of  absolute  knowledge.  And 
that  investigation  showed  us  that; absolute  knowledge  is  simply 

1 Studies  in  Hegelian  Dialectic,  §  181.  *Werke,  Bd.  II,  pp.  16-17. 

25 

c 


26          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

Hegel's  definition  of  the  essential  nature  of  thought  as  he  uses 
the  term,  and  that  thought  as  thus  defined  is  more  than  abstract 
cognition  since  it  is  both  genuinely  objective  and  truly  universal. 
In  the  present  chapter  it  is  our  aim  to  investigate  the  nature  of 
mediation,  to  learn  if  we  can  what  Hegel  has  to  say  about  the 
activity  of  thought  and  about  its  function  as  a  mediating  process. 
The  discussion  here  will,  presumably,  elaborate  further  and 
strengthen  the  conclusions  which  we  have  already  reached,  by 
showing  how  philosophical  knowledge,  in  the  Hegelian  system,  is 
more  than  a  mere  mediating  activity  among  phenomena  external 
to  it. 

It  may  be  helpful  at  the  beginning  to  state  in  a  general  way  the 
order  of  the  discussion  before  us.  No  detailed  account  of  the 
dialectical  process,  nor  any  defense  of  the  dialectical  method 
with  reference  to  the  development  of  the  categories  in  the  Logic 
will  be  attempted  here.  Our  present  purpose  is  a  less  ambitious 
one.  We  shall  simply  state,  as  best  we  may,  what  Hegel  means 
by  thought  as  a  process  of  mediation,  and  what  is  his  real  con- 
tention when  he  says  that  negation  is  the  vital  and  potent  element 
in  this  process.  In  accordance  with  this  purpose,  therefore,  we 
shall  begin  our  study  with  a  consideration  of  immediacy  and 
mediation ;  and  this  will  lead  us  on  to  a  discussion  of  negation, 
which  we  shall  be  forced  to  defend  against  certain  misconcep- 
tions that  have  given  rise  to  some  unjustifiable  criticisms  of 
Hegel.  Our  general  conclusion  will  be  that  thought,  as  the 
Hegelian  system  defines  it  from  this  point  of  view,  is  a  process 
of  mediation  which,  because  of  the  negative  element* involved  in 
it,  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  say  that  reality  is  comprehended 
in  thought;  for  its  universals  assume  the  form,  not  of  abstract 
indeterminate  immediacy,  but  of  concrete  determinate  immediacy, 
that  is,  individuality. 

4. /Before  passing  directly  to  a  consideration  of  Hegel's  conception 

of  mediation  and  immediacy,  steps  should  be  taken  to  avoid  a 
possible  error  of  interpretation.  And  this  precaution  will  also 
serve  us  as  a  point  of  departure  in  our  discussion.  Absolutely 
pure  immediacy,  immediacy  exclusive  of  mediation,  is  meaning- 
less for  Hegel.  This,  of  course,  follows  at  once  from  what  was 
said  in  the  preceding  chapter  concerning  the  objectivity  of 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT.  27 

thought:  there  is  no  indeterminate  given.  A  few  quotations, 
however,  will  settle  the  matter.  "We  must  reject  the  opposition 
between  an  independent  immediacy  in  the  contents  or  facts  of 
consciousness  and  an  equally  independent  mediation,  supposed 
incompatible  with  the  former.  The  incompatibility  is  a  mere 
assumption,  an  arbitrary  assertion."1  Again,  we  read:  "There 
is  nothing,  nothing  in  heaven,  in  nature,  in  spirit,  or  anywhere 
else  which  does  not  contain  both  immediacy  and  mediation."2 
The  whole  of  the  second  part  of  the  Logic,  we  are  told,  is  "a  dis- 
cussion of  the  intrinsic  and  self-affirming  unity  of  immediacy  and 
mediation."3  Only  the  abstract  understanding  separates  the 
two,  and  then  it  finds  itself  utterly  helpless  to  reconcile  them.4 
It  is  the  business  of  philosophy,  however,  to  disclose  the  fallacy 
involved  in  such  arbitrary  procedure,  and  to  bring  to  conscious- 
ness the  fact  of  the  essential  inseparability  of  that  which  is  im- 
mediate and  that  which  is  mediated.5  "Even  if  we  take  up  an 
empirical,  an  external  attitude,  it  will  be  found  that  there  is 
nothing  at  all  that  is  immediate,  that  there  is  nothing  to  which 
only  the  quality  of  immediacy  belongs  to  the  exclusion  of  that  of 
mediation,  but  that  what  is  immediate  is  likewise  mediated,  and 
that  immediacy  itself  is  essentially  mediated."6  From  these 
explicit  statements  it  is  unmistakably  clear  that,  whatever  Hegel 
may  mean  by  immediacy  and  mediation,  they  are  indissolubly 
associated  with  each  other. 

The  conclusion  to  which  we  are  thus  led  is  that  immediacy  is 
the  result  of  at  least  partial  mediation,  or,  as  Hegel  prefers  to  say, 
that  "immediacy  itself  is  essentially  mediated."  The  degree  of 
truth  to  which  the  various  stages  of  immediacy  can  lay  claim 
depends  upon  the  amount,  or  rather  the  exhaustiveness,  of  the 
mediation  involved.  That  is  to  say,  imperfect  mediation  results 
in  an  immediacy  which  is  only  partially  true ;  immediacy  becomes 
entirely  true  only  when  it  is  exhaustively  mediated.  This  fact 
might  be  illustrated  by  any  category  of  the  Logic.  Being,  for 
example,  is  really  viewed  in  its  truth  only  when  it  is  seen  in  the 
light  of  the  Absolute  Idea ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  all  other  lower 

lEnc.,  §  78.  2Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  p.  56. 

3£wc.,  §  65-  4Cf.  ibid.,  §  70. 

*Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  XV,  pp.  496  ff.  (Hist,  of  Philos.,  trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  420  if.). 

*Werke,  Bd.  XI,  p.  158  (Philos.  of  Relig.,  trans.,  Vol.  I,  p.  162). 


28          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

forms  of  immediacy.  The  Absolute  Idea  itself  is  the  ultimately 
true  immediate  solely  because  it  is  the  perfectly  mediated.  The 
nature  of  true  immediacy  will  thus  appear  as  we  determine  the 
essential  nature  of  the  process  of  mediation  of  which  it  is  the 
result. 

A  point  which  will  be  of  great  importance  to  us  when  we  come 
to  inquire  concerning  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  ultimately  real 
emerges  here.  We  have  just  said  that  the  completely  mediated 
is  for  Hegel  the  ultimately  true.  Now  when  we  remember  that 
he  identifies  the  ultimately  true  and  the  ultimately  real,  we  are 
led  at  once  to  the  important  conclusion  that  the  real  is  the  result 
of  this  process  of  mediation.  As  Hegel  views  the  matter,  the 
various  stages  of  immediacy  are  more  or  less  concrete  according 
as  the  mediation  involved  in  each  is  more  nor  less  exhaustive ;  the 
completely  mediated  immediacy  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
concreteness  of  reality  itself.  The  Absolute  Idea  is  an  immediacy 
which  is  completely  mediated ;  it  is  therefore  the  ultimately  real 
category,  the  very  expression  of  reality  itself.  Reality  thus  is  a 
matter  of  mediation.  This  point  will  serve  as  the  basis  of  our 
discussion  of  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  reality.  But  for 
the  present  we  are  interested  to  work  out  the  nature  of  this  proc- 
ess of  mediation  itself. 

If  we  turn  to  the  preface  of  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit,  we 
find  there  Hegel's  formal  definition  of  the  process  of  mediation. 
Mediation,  he  there  tells  us,  is  "nothing  other  than  self-uniformity 
(Sichselbstgleichheif)  developing  itself;  or  it  is  reflection  into  itself, 
the  moment  of  the  Ego  which  exists  for  itself  (des  fiirsichseienden 
Ich),  pure  negativity,  or,  degraded  from  its  pure  abstraction, 
simple  becoming."1  A  page  or  two  preceding  this  passage  he 
asserts  that,  according  to  his  view,  the  whole  matter  reduces 
to  this:  "Truth  is  to  be  conceived  of  and  expressed,  not  as  Sub- 
stance, but  as  Subject.  At  the  same  time  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
substantiality  includes  in  itself  both  that  which  is  the  immediacy 
of  knowledge  itself,  namely,  the  universal,  and  that  which  is  the 
immediacy  for  knowledge,  namely,  Being.  .  .  ."2 

The  first  of  these  passages  gives  us  Hegel's  conception  of  the 
nature  and  characteristics  of  the  process  of  mediation ;  the  second 

lWerke,  Bd.  II,  p.  16.  2Ibid.,  p.  14. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT.  29 

emphasizes  the  nature  of  the  result  of  the  process.  Taken  to- 
gether, the  meaning  of  the  two  seems  to  be  this.  If  we  define 
truth  as  substance,  our  definition  is  so  far  right;  both  thought 
and  being,  both  the  particular  and  the  universal,  are  included 
in  the  definition.  But  the  inadequacy  of  this  definition  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  fails  to  explain  satisfactorily  the  relation  of  these 
two  aspects  of  experiences.  Thought  and  being  are  left  existing 
side  by  side,  as  it  were,  in  a  blank  identity  devoid  of  differences, 
which  identity,  like  Schelling's,"is  absolutely  presupposed  without 
any  attempt  being  made  to  show  that  this  is  the  truth."1  The 
attempt  to  show  that  this  is  the  truth  inevitably  leads  us,  Hegel 
thinks,  to  the  standpoint  of  subject,  to  the  conception  of  identity  in 
difference  which  is  the  central  fact  of  consciousness.  Now  the 
process  of  exhibiting  this  necessity  is  the  process  of  mediation, 
which,  when  the  goal  is  once  reached,  appears  in  its  true  light 
as  the  expression  of  the  interrelation  of  the  parts  of  an  organic 
whole  which  itself  exists  for  itself.  When  viewed  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  lower  stages  of  immediacy,  mediation  seems 
merely  the  expression  of  an  external  relation  among  phenomena 
more  or  less  independent  of  each  other;  but  when  it  is  looked  at 
in  its  real  nature,  when  it  is  viewed  sub  specie  (zternitatis,  it  is  seen 
to  be  the  expression  of  the  necessary  and  vital  interconnection 
of  phenomena  which  themselves  have  significance  only  as  parts 
of  a  comprehensive  unity.  Summarizing,  then,  we  may  say  that 
the  process  of  mediation  is  a  development  towards  greater  deter- 
minateness  and  the  progressive  substitution  of  necessary  and 
vital,  for  seemingly  accidental  and  arbitrary,  connections  among 
phenomena;  and  such  a  development  is  from  the  abstract  to  the 
concrete,  its  final  goal  being  the  concreteness  of  reality  itself. 
As  Hegel  himself  elsewhere  expresses  it:  "The  progress  of  de- 
velopment is  equivalent  to  further  determination,  and  this  means 
further  immersion  in  and  a  fuller  grasp  of  the  Idea  itself."2 

A  glance  at  Hegel's  criticisms  of  Jacobi's  doctrine  of  immediacy 
will  give  us  an  insight  into  his  own  doctrine  of  mediation.  It 
will  accordingly  be  well  for  us  to  notice  this  criticism  before 
passing  on.  But  first  let  us  remind  ourselves  of  what  in  general 
are  the  nature  and  significance  of  Jacobi's  doctrine. 

lWerke,  Bd.  XV,  pp.  597-598  (Hist,  of  Philos.,  trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  525). 
*Werke,  Bd.  XIII,  p.  55  (Hist,  of  Philos.,  trans.,  Vol.  I,  p.  41). 


30          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

•  The  chief  significance  of  Jacobi's  doctrine,  for  our  purposes  at 
any  rate,  is  its  insistence  that  after  all  there  is  an  ultimate  reality 
with  which  we  must  somehow  come  in  contact.  "Reason,"  he 
tells  us,  "plainly  presupposes  the  true,  as  the  outer  sense  space 
and  inner  sense  time,  and  exists  only  as  the  faculty  of  this  pre- 
supposition. So  that  where  this  presupposition  is  wanting  there 
is  no  reason.  The  true  must  therefore  be  possessed  by  man  just 
as  certainly  as  he  possesses  reason."1  Reason  "affords  us  a 
knowledge  of  supersensible  objects,  that  is,  affords  us  assurance 
of  their  reality  and  truth."2  This  insistence  upon  the  ultimate 
intelligibility  of  reality  is  an  important  point  in  Jacobi's  philos- 
ophy, and  Hegel  does  not  fail  to  call  attention  to  it.  But,  not- 
withstanding Hegel's  recognition  of  this  point,  he  yet  criticizes 
Jacobi,  as  he  does  Kant,  for  denying  in  fact  that  reality  can  be 
known.3  And  we  are  compelled  to  admit  the  justice  of  the  criti- 
cism. For  Jacobi's  only  medium  through  which  reality  can  be 
known,  though  at  times  he  calls  it  reason  as  above,  is  in  point 
of  fact  different  from  reason;  it  is  something  which  lies  beyond 
reason,  a  kind  of  intuition,  a  form  of  immediate  knowledge  from 
which  all  mediation  is  excluded.  From  this  form  of  knowing 
the  categories  of  thought  are,  to  some  extent  at  least,  banished 
as  useless.  Of  course,  this  is  no  place  to  enter  into  the  disputed 
question  whether,  in  his  conception  of  immediacy,  Jacobi  at- 
tempted to  get  rid  entirely  of  the  categories  of  thought ;  to  solve 
this  problem  is  not  necessary  for  our  present  purpose.  However 
the  problem  may  be  solved,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Jacobi 
contemned  mediation  in  his  grasp  of  that  immediacy  which  is 
the  ultimately  real,  and  that  he  arrived  at  his  goal  only  by  means 
of  a  saltomortale,  baldly  asserting  that  "sometime  or  other  every 
philosophy  must  have  recourse  to  a  miracle."4 

Now,  from  Hegel's  point  of  view,  this  Jacobian  position,  if 
true,  would  be  the  death-knell  of  all  philosophy  and  would  reduce 
us  to  absolute  relativity.  It  corroborates  the  'comfortable  view' 
that  study,  painstaking  effort;  and  diligent  application  are  not 

1Werke,  Bd.  II,  p.  101.  Quoted  by  A.  W.  Crawford,  Philosophy  of  F.  H.  Jacobi, 
P-43- 

2Ibid.,  p.  59.     See  N.  Wilde,  Friedrich  Heinrich  Jacobi,  pp.  63  ff. 

*Werke,  Bd.  XV,  p.  549  (Hist,  of  Philos.,  trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  475)- 

4Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  p.  53.  See  in  this  connection  Wallace,  Prolegomena,  p.  45; 
also  Levy-Bruhl,  La  Philosophic  de  Jacobi,  pp.  257-258. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT.  31 

in  the  least  essential  to  the  search  after  truth :  truth  is  given,  is 
thrust  upon  us  in  immediate,  intuitive  perception.  But  this  is 
a  dangerous  attitude,  Hegel  urges.  It  may  be  that  God  gives 
to  His  beloved  in  sleep;  but,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  that  which  is 
given  in  sleep  is  usually  discovered  to  be  simply  the  wares  of 
sleep.  In  less  figurative  language,  if  truth  is  a  matter  of  feeling, 
however  high  above  reason  the  feeling  may  be  supposed  to  stand, 
then  it  is  relative  and  the  search  for  it  is  useless :  individual  per- 
ception, immediate  intuition,  or  what  not,  is  too  prone  to  cater 
to  individual  prejudices  and  prepossessions.  "What  has  its  root 
only  in  my  feelings,  is  only  for  me ;  it  is  mine,  but  not  its  own ;  it 
has  no  independent  existence  in  and  for  itself."1  Hence,  if  ulti- 
mate reality  is  and  can  be  only  an  object  of  feeling,  whether  that 
feeling  be  called  intuition,  faith,  immediate  certainty,  or  ultra- 
rational  perception,  then  there  is  absolutely  no  reason  why  the 
real  should  not  be  denied  objectivity;  on  the  contrary,  there 
seems  to  be  every  reason  to  urge  that  it  is  reduced  to  purely 
subjective  terms.  Hegel  makes  merry  over  this  predicament  of 
the  Jacobian  philosophy,  and  sarcastically  exclaims:  "Truth  is 
in  a  bad  way,  when  all  metaphysics  is  done  away  with,  and  the 
only  philosophy  acknowledged  is  not  a  philosophy  at  all!"2 

But  fortunately  for  truth  it  is  not  in  this  sad  predicament.  In 
supporting  this  position  Jacobi  overlooks  the  fact  that  short-cuts 
in  philosophy  are  as  useless  and  hurtful  as  they  are  in  any  other 
field  where  assiduous  and  patient  toil  is  an  absolute  requisite. 
Philosophy,  the  discovery  of  truth,  does  not  depend  upon  a 
miracle,  as  Jacobi  asserts,  but  upon  hard  work.  Jacobi  was  led 
to  his  false  position  by  his  misconception  of  the  nature  of  thought 
as  a  mediating  activity.  This  Hegel  sees  clearly  and  criticizes 
sharply  and  decisively.  As  Jacobi  conceives  the  matter,  the 
mediation  of  thought  is  merely  a  progression  from  finite  to  finite, 
from  conditioned  to  conditioning  which  is  in  turn  conditioned.3 
It  is  a  process  of  mediation  among  phenomena  quasi-mechan- 
ically  related  to  each  other ;  thus  it  can  be  nothing  but  a  regressus 
ad  infinitum.  The  end  of  this  infinite  regress  cannot  be  any- 

lWerke,  Bd.  XI,  p.  52  (Philos.  of  Relig.,  trans.,  Vol.  I,  p.  51). 
*Werke,  Bd.  XV,  p.  551  (Hist,  of  Philos.,  trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  477). 
*Enc.,  §  62.     See  also  Werke,  Bd.  XV,  pp.  489  ff.  (Hist,  of  Philos.,  trans.,  Vol. 
Ill,  pp.  413  ff.). 


32  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

thing  more  than  a  blank  abstraction,  the  empty  absolute,  a 
barren  identity  of  thought  and  being.1  The  ultimately  real  must 
lie  beyond  such  knowledge,  since  to  know  it  would  be  to  limit 
it  and  a  limited  absolute  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.2  Thus  there 
is  an  impassable  gulf  set  between  the  finite  and  conditioned  and 
the  infinite  and  unconditioned,  between  the  realm  of  that  which 
seems  and  that  which  really  is.  And  the  process  of  mediation 
is  arbitrarily  confined  to  the  former  sphere.  True  immediacy, 
therefore,  that  immediacy  which  can  be  predicated  of  reality, 
must  exclude  all  mediation.3  So  the  real  task  of  philosophy  is  to 
leap  the  gulf  which  cannot  be  bridged ;  and  it  accomplishes  this 
miracle  in  order  to  find  outside  of  the  ken  of  human  knowledge 
that  which  makes  human  knowledge  possible,  namely,  the  ulti- 
mately true.  But,  Hegel  argues,  this  ridiculous  contention  is 
based  upon  a  false  view  of  the  mediating  activity  of  thought. 
True  mediation  is  not  external  mediation.  Instead  of  leading 
only  from  the  conditioned  to  the  conditioning  in  an  infinite 
regress,  it  transforms  the  conditioned  into  the  self-conditioning 
and  so  discloses  the  infinite  and  unconditioned  just  within  the 
realm  of  the  finite  and  conditioned.  Likewise,  true  immediacy 
does  not«consist  in  transcending  mediation ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  subsumption  of  mediation,  the  unity  in  a  higher  synthesis  of 
mediated  factors.4  We  may  put  the  whole  matter  in  Hegel's 
own  words:  "Immediate  knowledge,  like  mediated  knowledge, 
is  entirely  one-sided.  What  is  true  is  their  unity,  an  immediate 
knowledge  which  is  likewise  mediated,  something  mediated  which 
is  likewise  simple  in  itself,  which  is  immediate  reference  to  itself. 
.  .  .  Here  is  union,  in  which  the  difference  of  those  characteristics 
is  done  away  with,  while  at  the  same  time,  being  preserved 
ideally,  they  have  the  higher  destiny  of  serving  as  the  pulse  of 
vitality,  the  impulse,  movement,  unrest  of  the  spiritual  as  of 
the  natural  life."5 

A  brief  statement  of  the  contrast  between  Jacobi  and  Hegel 
on  this  point  will  serve  to  put  in  relief  Hegel's  view  of  the  matter. 
Jacobi  would  fully  agree  with  Hegel  that  "the  only  content  which 

*Wcrke,  Bd.  XV,  pp.  362-363  (Hist,  of  Philos.,  trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  282-283). 

zlbid.,  p.  498  (ibid.,  p.  422).  3Enc.,  §  62. 

*Werke,  Bd.  XVII,  pp.  10  ff.;  Enc.,  §  50. 

*Werke,  Bd.  XI,  pp.  58-59  (Philos.  of  Relig.,  trans.,  Vol.  I,  p.  58). 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT.  33 

can  be  held  to  be  the  truth  is  one  not  mediated  with  something 
else,  not  limited  by  other  things."1  And  from  this  both  would 
agree  in  drawing  the  conclusion  that  the  ultimately  true  must  be 
immediate.  But  here  they  would  part  company;  of  the  nature 
of  this  immediate  they  would  have  exactly  antithetical  con- 
ceptions. By  immediate  Jacobi  would  mean  that  which  is  given 
independently  of  all  mediation  whatsoever;  while  Hegel  would 
mean  by  it  a  completely  mediated  content,  a  content  ' 'mediated 
by  itself,  where  mediation  and  immediate  reference-to-self  co- 
incide."2 Whereas  Jacobi  conceives  of  ultimate  reality  as  the 
postulate  of  immediate  intuition,  Hegel  defines  it  as  the  result  of 
mediating  thought:  to  the  one,  true  immediacy  is  void  of  any 
trace  of  mediation;  while  to  the  other, it  is  nothing  but  perfect 
mediation.  This  difference  between  the  two  thinkers  concerning 
immediacy,  is,  of  course,  due  to  the  fact  that  their  views  of  the 
mediating  activity  of  thought  are  different.  Jacobi  conceives 
of  the  process  as  one  of  simple  negation,  which  passes  from 
content  to  content  without  being  any  the  richer  for  its  wander- 
ings; it  forever  pursues  a  goal  which  eternally  lies  beyond  its 
grasp.  Hegel,  on  the  contrary,  views  the  process,  not  as  one 
of  mere  negation,  but  as  one  of  determinate  negation;  one  which 
"holds  fast  the  positive  in  the  negative,"  includes  its  content 
within  itself,  and  passes  by  means  of  the  negative  into  a  higher 
synthesis  in  which  is  preserved  the  truth  of  the  mediated  factors.3 

And  this  brings  us  to  a  consideration  of  negation,  that  aspect 
of  thought  which  gives  it  its  possibility  as  a  mediating  activity. 
I  think  it  may  be  justly  said  that  an  understanding  of  this 
Hegelian  conception  is  absolutely  essential  to  a  correct  apprecia- 
tion of  the  system.  As  the  author  himself  says  more  than  once, 
it  is  the  very  soul  and  vitality  of  the  dialectic;  it  is  that  by  virtue 
of  which  the  dialectic  leads  us  to  the  concrete  fullness  of  the 
Absolute  Idea  itself.  Let  us  first  try  to  grasp  its  significance, 
and  we  shall  then  be  in  a  position  to  see  how  it  has  been  mis- 
understood. 

It  has  been  said  that  in  order  to  understand  Hegel  properly 
one  must  read  him  backwards.  This  is  nowhere  more  imperative 
than  in  an  attempt  to  see  what  he  means  by  the  negative  in 

lEnc.,  §  74-  *Ibid. 

3Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  V,  pp.  328  ff. 


34          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

thought.  He  tells  us  in  the  Logic,  "To  mediate  is  to  take  some- 
thing as  a  beginning  and  to  go  onward  to  a  second  thing :  so  that 
the  existence  of  this  second  thing  depends  on  our  having  reached 
it  from  something  else  contradistinguished  from  it."1  But  this 
is  by  no  means  all  there  is  to  the  process  as  Hegel  defines  it.  He 
maintains  further  that  this  "development  of  one  thing  out  of 
another  means  that  what  appears  as  sequel  and  derivative  is 
rather  the  absolute  prius  of  what  it  appears  to  be  mediated  by."2 
In  this  statement  we  find  set  forth,  it  would  seem,  the  fundamen- 
tal aspect  of  the  dialectical  method:  at  any  rate,  here  we  find 
given  us  the  right  point  of  view  for  regarding  the  process.  That 
which  comes  first  finds  its  explanation  in  what  follows;  what 
seems  to  be  product  is  really  ground ;  truth  is  a  last  result  and 
not  a  first  principle.  Mediation  is  thus  a  passage  from  one 
object  to  another  which  takes  place  by  simply  making  explicit 
the  inner  connection  and  the  essential  oneness  of  the  objects. 
This  point  we  have  already  dwelt  upon  above. 
•  Assuming  now  this  point  of  view,  we  are  in  a  position  to  see 
I  what  Hegel  means  by  the  significance  and  power  of  the  negative 
I  in  thought.  Simple  relation  to  another  is,  for  Hegel,  negation: 
in  so  far  as  an  object  refers  beyond  itself  it  involves  negation. 
From  this  it  follows  that  everything  involves  negation,  that  is, 
every  finite  object;  for  by  its  very  nature  every  finite  object 
refers  beyond  itself.  Hence  the  potency  of  negation  in  the  dia- 
lectic. The  particular  points  beyond  itself  for  its  explanation 
and  completion,  it  finds  its  'truth'  in  the  other.  Taken  as  it  is 
given,  it  is  isolated,  indeterminate,  abstract;  but  by  the  power 
of  the  negative  inherent  in  it,  that  is,  because  of  its  abstract 
indeterminateness,  it  leads  on  to  and  passes  into  its  context, 
and  so  becomes  less  indeterminate.  Its  other,  however,  in  terms 
of  which  the  object  finds  its  explanation,  is  in  its  turn  abstract 
and  leads  on  to  its  other  for  its  determination ;  and  so  the  process 
goes  on.  Reference  beyond  self,  negation,  is  thus  the  power  that 
keeps  in  motion  the  machinery  of  the  dialectic.  This  reference 
beyond  itself,  however,  is  not  externally  imposed  upon  the  object; 
it  is  not  the  expression  of  a  relation  between  itself  and  another 
essentially  different  from  it.  Rather  is  this  reference  beyond 

.,  §  12.  *Enc.,  §  552. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT.  35 

self  the  very  expression  of  the  deepest  nature  of  the  object;  the 
other  is  not  an  indifferent  other,  but  the  other  in  which  the  object 
finds  its  true  self.  The  reference  beyond  self,  the  negation  in- 
herent in  the  object,  is  just  the  indication  of  the  fact  that  the 
true  self  of  the  object  lies  elsewhere  than  in  its  own  factual  exist- 
ence. Thus  the  negative  leads  us  ever  to  concrete  universality; 
for  the  form  proves  to  be  the  '  'indigenous  becoming  of  the  con- 
crete content,"  and  so  the  process  is  one  of  self-determination  in 
which  the  particular  finds  its  universal  and  the  universal  its 
particular.1 

VBut,  in  order  to  see  that  negation  does  actually  lead  us  to  such 
a  result,  it  is  essential  that  the  exact  function  of  the  negative 
in  thought  be  kept  clearly  in  view.  Hegel  criticizes  Jacobi  very 
severely  for  neglecting  the  negative  in  his  doctrine  of  immediate 
knowledge;  and  the  chief  fault  he  has  to  find  with  Condillac's 
development  of  the  categories  is  that  in  the  development  the  nega- 
tive aspect  of  thought  is  entirely  overlooked.  So  it  will  be  well 
for  us  to  state  explicitly  and  discuss  the  two  points  upon  which 
Hegel  lays  stress  in  his  doctrine  of  negation.  The  first  of  these 
points  is  that  negation  is  negative.  The  second  is  that  negation 
is  positive.  We  begin  with  the  first  of  these  two  points. 

It  is  necessary  for  us  to  remember,  says  Hegel,  that  thought 
really  is  a  process  of  negation.  This  is  just  the  point  which  he 
has  in  mind  in  the  above  mentioned  criticism  of  Condillac.  He 
grants  that  Condillac  posits  the  right  point  of  departure,  namely, 
immediate  experience :  the  cardinal  error  of  Condillac's  procedure, 
he  urges,  is  that  the  negative  involved  in  the  development  of  the 
categories  is  completely  forgotten.  Perhaps  it  will  be  well  to 
quote  the  passage  here:  "In  Condillac's  method  there  is  an  un- 
mistakable intention  to  show  how  the  several  modes  of  mental 
activity  could  be  made  intelligible  without  losing  sight  of  mental 
unity,  and  to  exhibit  their  necessary  interconnection.  But  the 
categories  employed  in  doing  so  are  of  a  wretched  sort.  Their 
ruling  principle  is  that  the  sensible  is  taken  (and  with  justice) 
as  the  prius  or  the  initial  basis,  but  that  the  later  phases  that 
follow  this  starting-point  present  themselves  as  emerging  in  a 
solely  affirmative  manner,  and  the  negative  aspect  of  mental 

1Werke,  Bd.  II,  p.  44;  see  also  pp.  43,  45. 


36  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

activity,  by  which  this  material  is  transmuted  into  mind  and 
destroyed  as  a  sensible,  is  misconceived  and  overlooked.  As  the 
theory  of  Condillac  states  it,  the  sensible  is  not  merely  the  empir- 
ical first,  but  is  left  as  if  it  were  the  true  and  essential  foundation."1 

Now  what  does  this  criticism  mean?  Of  course  we  are  not 
concerned  to  inquire  here  whether  it  is  a  just  criticism  of  Con- 
dillac's  theory.  Apart  from  this  theory,  and  expressed  in  general 
terms,  the  criticism  means,  it  would  seem,  simply  that,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  to  think  the  world  is  virtually  to  deny  that  its 
first  immediate  aspect  is  the  ultimately  true.  Thought  is  not 
exclusively  affirmative;  it  is  negative  as  well,  and  its  negative 
function  is  to  transform  the  immediately  given.  Expressed  in 
Hegel's  own  words:  "To  think  the  phenomenal  world  rather 
means  to  recast  its  form  and  transmute  it  into  a  universal.  And 
thus  the  action  of  thought  has  also  a  negative  effect  upon  its 
basis:  and  the  matter  of  sensation,  when  it  receives  the  stamp  of 
universality,  at  once  loses  its  first  and  phenomenal  shape."2 
That  is,  all  thinking  experience  is  a  process  of  interpretation  in 
which  there  is  and  can  be  no  bare  immediacy;  for  thinking  ipso 
facto  involves  the  transcending  of  the  particular  and  the  trans- 
formation of  it  into  the  form  of  the  universal.  Such,  then,  is  the 
negative  function  of  thought:  and  all  thought  is  negative.  To 
think  the  world  is  to  deny  its  reality  in  the  form  of  abstract 
particularity;  its  purely  immediate  aspect  is  by  thought  negated. 

But,  be  it  noted,  the  particular  is  not  merely  denied;  in  a  very 
important  sense  it  is  also  affirmed.  And  this  brings  us  to  the 
second  point,  that  thought  is  positive  as  well  as  negative.  As  an 
abstract  particular,  qua  abstract,  to  think  it  is  to  negate  it;  as  a 
universalized  particular,  qua  universalized,  to  think  it  is  to  affirm 
it.  Reason,  in  short,  is  positive  as  well  as  negative;  and,  what 
is  more  important  still,  is  positive  by  virtue  of  the  very  fact  of 
its  negativity.  "To  hold  fast  the  positive  in  the  negative  is  the 
most  important  aspect  of  rational  knowledge."3  Hegel  cannot 
be  accused  of  having  neglected  to  state  very  definitely  what  he 
means  by  this  positive  significance  of  negation.  In  the  intro- 
duction to  the  larger  Logic  he  tells  us  that  what  is  needed  to 
secure  the  dialectical  movement  of  thought  "is  to  realize  that  the 

lEnc.,  §  442.  *Enc.,  §  50.  3Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  330. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT.  37 

negative  is  just  as  much  positive,  or  that  contradiction  does  not 
dissolve  into  zero,  into  blank  nothingness,  but  only  into  the 
negation  of  its  particular  content."  And  he  goes  on  to  say :  "We 
must  realize  that  such  negation  is  not  total  negation,  but  only 
negation  of  a  determinate  content',  consequently  it  is  determinate 
negation.  In  other  words,  the  result  contains  essentially  that 
from  which  it  results.  ...  So  the  result,  that  is,  the  negation, 
being  a  definite  negation  has  a  content:  it  is  a  new  concept  or 
notion,  but  a  higher,  richer  notion  than  the  preceding  one  which 
has  been  enriched  by  its  own  negation  or  opposite.  The  new 
notion  contains  both  the  old  one  and  its  negation,  and  is  thus 
at  the  same  time  the  unity  of  the  older  with  its  opposite."1 
This  we  find  at  the  beginning  of  the  Logic]  at  the  very  end  we 
find  the  author  emphasizing  exactly  the  same  point.  The  nega- 
tive, he  there  tells  us,  is  indeed  "the  negative,  but  of  a  positive 
which  it  includes.  It  is  the  other,  not  of  something  to  which  it  is 
indifferent,  else  it  would  be  no  other.  ...  It  is  the  other  in  itself, 
the  other  of  another,  and  therefore  it  includes  its  other  within 
itself."2  These  passages  are  so  very  explicit  little  need  be  added 
by  way  of  interpretation.  Their  unquestionable  meaning  is  that 
negation  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  abstract  contradiction,  but 
as  affirmative  negation — concrete  synthesis.  Negation  is  not 
merely  the  tendency  of  the  finite  category  to  negate  itself,  to  pass 
into  its  abstract  opposite  or  other ;  it  is  not  a  bare  denial  of  thesis 
by  its  antithesis.  Rather  is  it  the  tendency  of  the  finite  category 
to  complete  itself,  to  pass  into  its  other  where  lies  its  own  true 
nature;  it  is  a  denial  of  the  thesis,  which  is  at  the  same  time  a 
synthesis  of  the  thesis  and  its  formal  opposite.  Thus  it  is  that 
the  negative  has  a  very  positive  import. 

This  is  a  very  vital  point  upon  which  Hegel  is  here  insisting. 
Real  negation  must  be  significant  negation:  the  infinite  judg- 
ment, we  must  agree  with  Hegel,  is  a  'nonsensical  curiosity'  of 
formal  logic.3  As  Mr.  Bradley  has  well  put  it:  "A  something 
that  is  only  not  something  else,  is  a  relation  that  terminates  in 
an  impalpable  void,  a  reflection  thrown  upon  empty  space.  It 
is  a  mere  non-entity  which  can  not  be  real."4  All  significant 

1Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  pp.  38-39. 

2Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  331;  notice  also  immediately  following  pages. 

3Cf.  Enc.,  §  173.  ^Principles  of  Logic,  p.  118. 


3§  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

negation  ipso  facto  has  a  positive  import ;  it  presupposes  a  system 
within  which  the  negative  is  to  fall,  a  unity  of  differences,  and 
within  the  system  negation  affirms,  more  or  less  explicitly,  some 
really  significant  conclusion  about  the  unity.  Bare  negation 
simply  denies  identity  of  contents  that  have  nothing  in  common, 
and  is  consequently  a  mere  tautology;  significant  negation,  on 
the  other  hand,  denies  identity  of  contents  which  are  in  some 
respects  one,  and  so  asserts  real  difference.  Of  course,  if  dis- 
junction within  the  unity  is  exhaustive,  negation  may  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  be  affirmation;  if  only  two  alternatives 
are  possible,  for  example,  the  denial  of  the  one  is  the  affirmation 
of  the  other.1  It  is  indeed  true  that  negation  may  carry  with 
it  very  little  positive  significance:  the  judgment,  'This  is  not 
black,'  tells  us  practically  nothing  so  far  as  the  actual  color  of 
the  object  under  consideration  is  concerned.  But  if  the  judg- 
ment is  really  a  significant  one,  if  it  has  any  meaning  at  all,  it 
partially  at  least  introduces  a  determination  into  the  universe 
of  discourse  by  telling  us,  for  example,  that  the  subject  of  the 
judgment  is  a  colored  object,  and  in  so  far  it  gives  us  positive 
knowledge  of  the  object  of  interest.2  And  this  negation  approxi- 
mates to  direct  affirmation  as  the  differences  within  the  system 
in  which  it  falls  are  more  sharply  defined — it  is  to  be  noted  that 
this  very  definition  may  be  the  result  of  negation ;  negative  in- 
stances are  always  more  than  negative.  Ultimately,  from  the 
denial  of  blackness  there  might  arise  positive  knowledge  concern- 
ing the  actual  color  of  the  object  of  judgment. 
^  Now  in  view  of  the  above  considerations  we  can  more  clearly 
see  what  Hegel  means  by  the  constant  assertion  that  the  negative 
is  the  very  soul  and  vitality  of  thought.  Thought  is  at  once 
analytic  and  synthetic;  it  does  not  first  negate  and  then  synthe- 
size, but  it  synthesizes  in  its  negation.  It  denies  abstract  un- 
relatedness,  and  affirms  and  defines  complex  interrelatedness 
among  phenomena.  It  rejects  the  unrelated  particular  and  the 

1Cf.  Bosanquet,  Logic,  Vol.  I,  pp.  293  ff. 

2It  might  be  objected  here  that  such  a  judgment  as  'The  soul  is  not  an  elephant' 
gives  us  no  positive  knowledge  whatsoever.  I  grant  that  the  objection  is  true, 
but  I  deny  its  relevancy,  since  we  are  here  dealing  with  significant  judgments. 
This  so-called  judgment  sins  against  the  presupposition  of  all  judgment,  and  con- 
sequently is  really  no  judgment.  From  the  standpoint  of  epistemology,  the 
i  nfinite  judgment  does  not  exist. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT.  39 

blank  universal  as  alike  indefinable  and  meaningless;  it  asserts 
the  necessity  of  identity  in  difference,  of  unity  within  multi- 
plicity. Thought  as  a  process  of  mediation  is  thus  of  a  two-fold 
nature:  it  is  the  denial  of  a  world  of  unrelated  elements,  and  the 
affirmation  of  the  world  as  concrete  totality.  Such  is  the  double 
function  of  negation:  it  denies  the  abstract  and  affirms  the  con- 
crete. Because  thought  is  negative,  it  drives  us  from  the  stand- 
point of  immediate  sense  experience  and  forces  us  to  seek  the 
eternal  and  true  elsewhere;  because  thought  is  positive  in  its 
negation,  it  perforce  "produces  the  universal  and  seizes  the  par- 
ticular in  it."1  Thus,  by  its  very  nature,  thought  is  a  process  of 
mediation  which  gives  as  a  result,  not  mere  abstract  generaliza- 
tion, but  real  determination — the  concrete  individual. 

I  know  of  no  better  summary  of  Hegel's  view  concerning  the 
negative  in  thought  than  the  one  which  he  himself  has  given  in 
the  preface  to  the  first  edition  of  the  larger  Logic:  "Reason  is 
negative  and  dialectical,  in  that  it  dissolves  the  determinations 
of  the  understanding  into  nothing;  it  is  positive  in  that  it  produces 
the  universal  and  preserves  (begreift)  the  particular  in  it.  As  the 
understanding  used  to  be  taken  as  something  separated  from 
reason  in  general,  so  dialectical  reason  used  to  be  taken  as  some- 
thing separated  from  positive  reason.  But  in  its  true  nature 
reason  is  mind  (Geist),  which  is  higher  than  both  cognitive 
(yerstandige)  reason  and  rational  understanding.  Mind  is  the 
negative,  that  which  constitutes  the  quality  of  dialectical  reason 
as  well  as  of  the  understanding.  It  negates  simplicity  and  so, 
like  the  understanding,  posits  determinate  difference;  but  it  also 
destroys  this  difference  and  so  is  dialectical.  Its  result,  however, 
is  not  mere  emptiness,  but  is  just  as  much  positive;  thus  it 
returns  to  and  establishes  the  first  simplicity,  which  now  is  a 
universal  concrete  in  itself."2 

T^Our  conclusion,  then,  concerning  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  proc- 
ess of  thought  as  dialectical  is  that  thought  is  a  process  of  negative 
mediation.  As  a  mediating  activity,  thought  is  not  limited  to 
the  finite  and  conditioned  as  those  who  appeal  to  the  necessity 
of  immediate  knowledge  would  have  us  believe.  On  the  con- 
trary, its  very  mediation  is  the  definition  of  reality;  by  relating 

lWerke,  Bd.  Ill,  p.  7- 


40          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

it  defines,  and  by  negating  it  affirms.  In  other  words,  the  process 
of  thought  is  the  progressive  explication  of  the  implicit,  the  dis- 
closure of  the  essential  nature  of  the  objects  of  knowledge. 
Negation  is  not  construed  in  terms  of  formal  contradiction;  it  is 
that  function  of  the  dialectic  by  virtue  of  which  it  leads  ulti- 
mately to  the  essence  of  reality.  However  faultily  Hegel  may 
be  thought  to  have  worked  out  this  conception  in  the  Logic,  its 
illuminating  suggestiveness  for  any  theory  of  knowledge  cannot 
be  denied  and  should  not  be  overlooked.1 

Perhaps  enough  has  been  said  about  this  Hegelian  doctrine  of 
negation.  But,  like  most  of  Hegel's  teachings,  it  has  not  escaped 
misconstruction  at  the  hands  of  the  critics.  So  it  may  not  be 
amiss,  at  the  conclusion  of  our  exposition,  to  add  a  few  words  in 
reply  to  some  of  the  most  characteristic  criticisms;  not,  indeed, 
for  controversial  purposes,  but  in  the  hope  that  the  attempt  to 
set  Hegel  right  in  the  eyes  of  his  critics  will  at  least  serve  to  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  another  interpretation  of  him  is  possible. 

The  criticisms  of  Haym  and  James  seem  unquestionably  to 
rest  upon  an  entirely  false  notion  of  what  Hegel  means  by  nega- 
tion. Haym  seems  to  think  that  Hegel  absurdly  contended  that 
the  essence  of  things  consists  in  their  being  contradictory;  and 
he  contrasts  this  supposed  position  of  Hegel's  with  the  Herbartian 
principle  that  the  way  to  truth  lies  through  the  elimination  of 
contradiction.2  Such  an  interpretation  evidently  takes  it  for 
granted  that  Hegel  can  mean  by  contradiction,  negation,  nothing 
more  than  what  formal  logic  means  by  it,  namely,  sheer  incom- 
patibility and  absolute  opposition;  to  all  appearances,  the  critic 
is  innocent  of  the  fact  that  negation  or  contradiction,  as  Hegel  is 
at  great  pains  to  define  it,  is  just  the  doing  away  with  bare  nega- 
tion, abstract  opposition,  and  that  the  term  embodies  Hegel's 
unwearied  insistence  that  formal  contradiction  has  no  significance 
when  applied  to  reality.  Naturally  the  criticism  is  no  more  sig- 
nificant than  the  assumption  upon  which  it  leans  for  support.  The 
same  oversight  is  at  the  basis  of  Professor  James's  criticism  of 
this  Hegelian  conception,  in  a  characteristic  discussion  "On  Some 
Hegelisms,"  in  his  volume  of  popular  lectures  on  philosophy  en- 

lln  this  connection  see  Professor  G.  H.  Sabine,  "The  Concreteness  of  Thought," 
The  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  XVI,  pp.  154-169. 
2Cf.  Hegel  und  seine  Zeit,  p.  331. 


THE  PROCESS  OF   THOUGHT.  41 

titled  The  Will  to  Believe.  At  a  very  dramatic  point  in  this  essay 
Hegel  is  presented  to  us,  standing  amidst  a  jarring,  jolting  world 
of  incoherent  facts,  frantically  lifting  Vain  hands  of  imprecation' 
at  the  wild  and  tumultuous  scene  before  him.  "But  hark! 
What  wondrous  strain  is  this  that  steals  upon  his  ear?  Muddle! 
is  it  anything  but  a  peculiar  sort  of  transparency?  Is  not  jolt 
passage?  Is  friction  other  than  a  kind  of  lubrication?  Is  not 
a  chasm  a  filling?  —  a  queer  kind  of  filling,  but  a  filling  still. 
Why  seek  for  a  glue  to  hold  things  together  when  their  very 
falling  apart  is  the  only  glue  you  need?  Let  all  that  negation 
which  seemed  to  disintegrate  the  universe  be  the  mortar  that 
combines  it,  and  the  problem  stands  solved."1  These  strictures 
are  apparently  supposed  to  be  a  real  criticism  of  Hegel,  but  the 
absurdity  against  which  they  are  directed  first  saw  the  light  when 
they  themselves  were  penned.  It  is  certain  that  such  an  absurd 
position  as  the  one  here  criticized  cannot  justly  be  attributed  to 
Hegel;  it  is  a  caricature  of  Hegel's  real  position.  The  'glue' 
that  binds  the  world  together  is,  in  Hegel's  view  of  the  matter, 
not  the  eternal  falling  apart  of  objects,  but  simply  their  necessary 
interconnectedness  ;  if  you  attempt  to  separate  them,  they  will 
not  stay  put.  Nor  is  it  that  negation  which  disintegrates  the 
universe  that  Hegel  uses  as  the  'mortar'  to  combine  it;  it  is 
that  negation  which,  because  it  is  as  much  positive  as  negative, 
does  actually  combine  it.  After  all,  it  would  appear  that  one  is 
forced  to  admit  that  Hegel  is  more  than  a  superficial  thinker 
trying  to  palm  off  on  a  long-suffering  public  palpable  absurdities. 
Trendelenburg's  criticism  of  Hegel  on  this  point  is  more  serious 
and,  one  is  inclined  to  say,  more  significant  than  the  preceding 
criticisms,  but  it  seems  no  less  fallacious.  This  critic  triumph- 
antly forces  Hegel  into  the  following  dilemma:  "Either  the  nega- 
tion, through  which  the  dialectic  development  to  the  second  and 
third  moments  is  mediated,  is  logical  negation  (A,  not-A)  —  in  which 
case  nothing  determinate  is  produced  in  the  second  moment  and  no 
synthesis  is  given  in  the  third;  or  else  the  opposition  is  a  real 
one  —  in  which  case  it  cannot  be  attained  by  logical  means,  and 
consequently  the  dialectic  is  not  the  dialectic  of  pure  thought."2 


to  Believe,  p.  273. 
*Logische  Untersuchungen,  Bd.  I,  p.  56.     I  translate  from  the  third  edition. 


42  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

Here  it  is  evident  that  the  critic  is  at  least  aware  that  two  kinds 
of  opposition  or  negation  are  possible,  namely,  logical  and  real; 
and  in  this  respect  his  criticism  differs  from  the  preceding  ones. 
But,  like  these  others,  Trendelenburg's  criticism  rests  upon  an 
assumption  the  validity  of  which  he  does  not  attempt  to  establish. 
The  assumption  in  this  case  is  that  Hegel  has  no  right  to  claim 
that  the  dialectic  of  pure  thought  can  involve  material  opposition. 
This  assumption  is  based  upon  a  further  assumption  that  pure 
thought  and  formal  thought  (abstract  cognition)  are  one.  If  we 
are  willing  to  grant  this  second  assumption,  then  the  above  dilem- 
ma exhausts  the  possibilities  and  so  accomplishes  its  purpose; 
in  the  nature  of  the  case  formal  opposition  or  negation  is  not 
material  opposition.  But  if  we  maintain  with  Hegel  that  form 
and  matter  are  one  and  inseparable,  and  that  real  thought,  so 
far  from  being  merely  formal  thought  confined  to  the  magic 
circle  of  the  impotent  universal,  actually  does  express  the  nature 
of  its  object,  then  the  critic's  dilemma  is  not  exhaustive  and  so 
loses  its  significance;  in  this  event,  formal  opposition  becomes  a 
mere  abstraction,  and  dialectical  negation,  the  negation  of  what 
Hegel  calls  pure  thought,  becomes  ipso  facto  real  opposition.  So 
it  would  seem  that  before  the  critic  undertook  to  annihilate  the 
dialectic  with  an  'either-or'  proposition,  he  should  have  come  to 
an  understanding  with  the  author  concerning  the  nature  of  that 
thought  of  which  the  dialectic  is  the  expression.  The  whole 
problem  is  whether  pure  thought,  as  Hegel  uses  the  term,  does 
involve  real  opposition;  and  this  must  be  argued,  not  assumed 
at  the  beginning. 

Mr.  McTaggart's  contention  that  negation  loses  import  as  the 
dialectic  advances  from  the  more  abstract  to  the  more  concrete 
categories  implies  the  same  general  misconception  of  the  nature  of 
negation.  In  his  opinion  negation  is  very  prominent  in  the 
earlier  categories,  while  in  the  later  categories  it  has  almost 
entirely  disappeared.  And  he  seeks  to  establish  this  interpreta- 
tion by  investigating  the  movement  of  the  dialectic  in  the  cate- 
gories of  Being,  and  by  contrasting  the  movement  there  with 
the  movement  in  the  categories  of  the  Notion.1  It  is  not  our 
present  purpose  to  inquire  whether  this  is  or  is  not  a  correct 

1Cf.  Studies  in  Hegelian  Dialectic,  §§  8,  9,  109,  117,  etc. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT.  43 

account  of  the  dialectic  as  it  is  actually  worked  out  in  the  Logic. 
The  point  of  interest  now  is  the  fact  that  negation,  as  Mr.  Mc- 
Taggart  implicitly  conceives  it,  is  not  negation  as  we  have  seen 
Hegel  define  it  above.  According  to  the  critic  thesis  and  anti- 
thesis, in  the  earlier  categories  of  the  Logic,  are  opposed  to  each 
other  in  a  more  or  less  mechanical  fashion  and  are  more  or  less 
externally  joined  together  by  means  of  the  synthesis;  but,  in  the 
later  categories,  this  abstract  opposition  is  wanting.  Now  to  go 
from  this  fact  (granting  for  the  sake  of  the  argument  that  it  is  a 
fact)  to  the  conclusion  that  negation  becomes  less  significant 
as  the  dialectic  advances  is  clearly  to  identify  negation  with  ab- 
stract opposition.  The  argument  is  this:  in  the  categories  of 
Being,  antithesis  is  the  logical  opposite  of  thesis,  and  so  here  we 
find  negation;  in  the  categories  of  the  Notion,  antithesis  and 
thesis  are  no  longer  sheer  incompatibles,  antithesis  defines  thesis, 
and  therefore  the  negation  formerly  existing  between  them  has 
disappeared.  In  this  argument  sheer  incompatibility  and  nega- 
tion are  obviously  used  synonymously.  But,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  this  sheer  incompatibility  is  not  Hegel's  conception  of  nega- 
tion. From  his  point  of  view  negation  does  not  simply  negate; 
its  nature  is  not  exhausted  in  bare  opposition.  On  the  contrary, 
it  always  presupposes  a  positive  ground  and  so  is  in  a  very 
important  sense  positive.  All  genuinely  significant  negation 
carries  with  it  a  positive  import;  bare  negation  is  a  meaningless 
tautology.  Hence  it  follows  that,  if  the  antithesis  is  to  be  a  true 
negative,  a  dialectical  negative,  as  Hegel  says  it  is,  then  it  must 
to  a  degree  at  least  define  the  thesis;  and  the  more  perfectly  it 
does  this,  the  more  significant  a  negative  does  it  become.  Thus, 
even  accepting  Mr.  McTaggart's  account  of  the  general  nature 
and  procedure  of  the  dialectic  as  true,  still  we  are  forced  to  reject 
his  conclusion.  As  Hegel  conceives  the  negative,  it  progressively 
becomes,  not  a  less  and  less,  but  a  more  and  more  important 
factor  in  the  dialectical  process ;  so  far  from  finally  disappearing 
entirely,  it  ever  grows  more  explicit  and  more  emphatic.  And 
this,  one  is  inclined  to  think,  is  the  true  description  of  the  matter: 
negation  gains  in  positive  import  as  the  universe  of  discourse 
becomes  more  determinate. 

Finally,  Mr.  Bradley's  implied  criticism  of  Hegel  on  this  point 


44          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

seems  open  to  the  same  general  criticism  as  the  above.  "The 
law  of  Contradiction,"  he  says,  "has  had  the  misfortune  to  be 
flatly  denied  from  a  certain  theory  of  the  nature  of  things.  So 
far  is  that  law  (it  has  been  contended)  from  being  the  truth, 
that  in  the  nature  of  things  contradiction  exists."1  Now  I  sub- 
mit that  this  statement,  as  a  criticism  of  the  Hegelian  theory,  is 
beside  the  mark.  Hegel  does  not  deny  the  validity  of  the  law  of 
contradiction  taken  in  its  abstract  and  formal  sense,  that  is,  as 
the  statement  of  the  relation  which  exists  between  logical  con- 
tradictories. A  unitary  whole  whose  elements  are  sheer  logical 
disparates  is,  I  think  we  may  safely  say,  as  genuine  a  non-entity 
for  Hegel  as  it  is  for  anyone  else.  What  Hegel  does  deny,  how- 
ever, is  that  such  abstract  contradiction  finds  a  place  in  reality; 
and  he  is  prepared  to  argue  that  when  we  attribute  it  to  reality 
we  are  guilty  of  attempting  the  impossible  task  of  making  reality 
square  with  the  principles  of  our  abstract  and  formal  logic. 
What  he  insists  upon  is  that  we  must  define  contradiction  more 
concretely,  if  we  would  apply  the  category  to  the  real ;  and  this 
more  concrete  definition  he  gives  us  in  his  doctrine  of  negation. 
But  this  position  does  not  necessarily  touch  the  validity  (formal 
validity)  of  the  law  of  contradiction  at  all  as  Mr.  Bradley  himself 
is  willing  to  admit.  "In  the  object  and  within  the  whole,"  he 
tells  us,  "the  truth  may  be  that  we  never  really  do  have  these 
disparates.  We  only  have  moments  which  would  be  incompatible 
if  they  really  were  separate,  but,  conjoined  together,  have  been 
subdued  into  something  within  the  character  of  the  whole  If 
we  so  can  understand  the  identity  of  opposites — and  I  am  not 
sure  that  we  may  not  do  so — then  the  law  of  Contradiction 
flourishes  untouched.  If,  in  coming  into  one,  the  contraries  as 
such  no  longer  exist,  then  where  is  the  contradiction?"2  Al- 
though it  is  questionable  whether  Mr.  Bradley  stands  consist- 
ently by  this  position  in  his  theory  of  knowledge,  we  certainly 
are  justified  in  attributing  it  to  Hegel.  So,  granting  this,  it 
would  seem  that,  on  the  critic's  own  showing,  Hegel  is  free  from 
the  charge  of  having  'flatly  denied'  the  significance  of  the  law  of 
contradiction.  He  had  no  quarrel  with  this  principle,  as  a  prin- 
ciple of  formal  logic;  I  am  persuaded  that  he,  as  well  as  his  critic, 
was  fully  conscious  of  the  fact  that '  'it  has  not  a  tooth  with  which 

^Principles  of  Logic,  p.  138.  2Ibid.,  p.  140. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT.  45 

to  bite  anyone."  He  respected  its  toothless  estate  and  had  no 
reason,  and,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  see,  no  inclination,  to 
rob  it  of  its  legitimate  claims,  'absurdly  feeble'  though  they 
surely  are.  What  he  was  anxious  to  do  was  to  make  the  formal 
principle  conscious  of  its  absurdly  feeble  condition,  and  to  reju- 
venate it  by  bringing  it  into  vital  touch  with  concrete  reality. 
As  the  statement  of  the  blank  opposition  of  disparates  the  prin- 
ciple is  indeed  abstract  and  impotent ;  as  the  negative  of  the  No- 
tion it  is  the  very  pulse  of  the  life  of  reality  itself.  This,  as  I 
comprehend  it,  is  the  position  of  Hegel  with  reference  to  the 
law  of  contradiction;  and,  if  I  read  Mr.  Bradley  aright,  it  differs 
only  in  terminology  from  his  own  view  of  the  matter. 

The  main  points  which  this  chapter  has  attempted  to  establish 
are  the  following.  Hegel  insists  that  immediacy  and  mediation 
are  inseparable,  that  all  immediacy  implies  mediation,  and  that 
the  immediacy  of  reality  involves  complete  mediation.  But  this 
is  not  to  identify  the  immediacy  of  reality  with  the  abstractions  of 
science.  For  the  process  of  mediation,  as  Hegel  defines  it,  is  a 
process  of  determinate  negation  which  reduces  experience  to  an 
ordered  and  systematic  whole;  it  affirms  as  well  as  denies,  and 
indeed  affirms  by  denying.  In  short,  it  is  the  principle  within 
experience  which  makes  of  experience  a  cosmos  and  not  a  chaos. 
A  completely  mediated  immediacy,  that  is,  reality,  is,  therefore, 
just  completely  organized  experience.  This  negative  within 
thought  is  not  merely  negative;  it  is  a  negative  which  annuls 
the  false  immediacy  only  because  it  is  ever  leading  us  onwards 
to  the  true  immediacy.  The  many  criticisms  which  are  directed 
against  Hegel  on  this  point  overlook  this  fact,  and  unwarrantedly 
assume  that  he  means  by  negation  abstract  contradiction. 


CHAPTER   III. 
ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY. 

The  conclusions  of  the  two  preceding  chapters  have  led  us  to 
a  further  problem  which  we  shall  here  be  forced  to  face.  If  it  be 
true  that  thought  does  in  point  of  fact  express  the  nature  of 
things,  then  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  the  science  of  thought 
is  the  science  of  things,  that  ontology  and  epistemology  coincide. 
In  this  connection  two  questions  arise:  Does  Hegel  identify  the 
two?  And  if  so,  what  does  he  mean  by  the  identification  and 
what  justification  is  there  for  it?  It  is  to  the  task  of  answering 
these  questions  that  we  now  address  ourselves. 

To  the  first  of  the  above  questions  there  can,  I  think,  be  only 
one  answer.  Hegel  does  identify  logic  and  metaphysics.  In  the 
first  place,  we  have  his  own  explicit  statement  on  the  point. 
Since  thoughts  are  "Objective  Thoughts,"  he  says,  "Logic  there- 
fore coincides  with  metaphysics,  the  science  of  things  set  and  held 
in  thoughts — thoughts  accredited  able  to  express  the  essential 
reality  of  things."1  Besides  such  an  explicit  statement,  one 
might  offer  as  evidence  the  whole  logical  bias  of  the  Hegelian 
philosophy  which  is  unquestionably  towards  this  identification. 
Since  the  categories  "really  are,  as  forms  of  the  Notion,  the  vital 
spirit  of  the  actual  world,"2  and  since  things  or  objects  which  do 
not  agree  with  them  are  accidental,  arbitrary,  and  untrue  phe- 
nomena;3 since  the  universal  aspect  of  the  object  is  not  something 
subjective  attributed  to  it  only  when  it  is  an  object  of  thought, 
but  rather  belongs  to  and  expresses  its  essential  nature,  it  follows 
that  the  science  which  has  to  do  with  these  universals  is  ipso 
facto  the  science  of  reality.  This  science,  of  course,  is  logic. 
Logic,  therefore,  is  metaphysics.4 

lEnc.,  §  24.  zlbid.,  §  162. 

3Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  231.  Notice  also  Hegel's  frequent  statements  concerning 
the  contingent. 

4A  word  should  be  said  here  to  prevent  a  possible  misconception.  This  coin- 
cidence of  logic  and  metaphysics  must  not  be  construed  to  mean  that  the  logical 
categories,  as  universals,  destroy  the  particularity  of  being.  The  identification 

46 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  47 

For  this  identification  of  logic  and  metaphysics  Hegel  has  been 
very  severely  criticized.  And  this  brings  us  to  our  second  ques- 
tion: What  does  Hegel  mean  by  the  identification,  and  can  it 
in  any  way  be  defended?  Perhaps  we  can  best  answer  this 
question  by  attempting  to  answer  the  objections  to  which  the 
identification  in  question  has  given  rise.  One  of  the  most  recent 
and  perhaps  the  clearest  and  most  convincing  of  Hegel's  critics 
on  this  point  is  Professor  Seth  Pringle-Pattison ;  consequently 
we  shall  devote  ourselves  to  a  consideration  of  his  objections. 
If  we  succeed  in  answering  satisfactorily  his  criticism,  we  shall 
have  succeeded  in  answering  all. 

But  before  passing  to  this  criticism  some  preliminary  work  is 
necessary.  We  must  first  attempt  to  define  the  exact  position 
of  the  Logic  with  reference  to  the  other  parts  of  Hegel's  system. 
This  will  clear  the  way  for  the  following  discussion.  But  in 
order  not  to  anticipate  that  discussion,  our  attention  will  here 
be  confined  exclusively  to  the  problem  of  the  position  of  the 
Logic  in  the  system;  the  problem  of  the  ontological  significance 
of  the  Logic  will  occupy  us  when  we  come  to  take  up  Professor 
Pringle-Pattison's  criticism.  What  then,  we  first  ask,  is  the 
position  of  the  Logic  in  the  system,  and  in  what  relation  does  it 
stand  to  the  other  parts  of  the  Encyclopaedia? 

The  best  point  of  departure  in  attempting  to  answer  this 
question  is  acquaintance  with  the  specific  problem  that  Hegel 
has  before  him  in  the  Logic.  In  order  to  determine  the  nature 
of  this  problem,  however,  a  consideration  of  the  question  con- 
cerning the  presupposition  of  the  Logic  is  necessary.  For  it 
would  seem  that  one  could  hardly  appreciate  the  significance  of 
the  dialectical  development  of  the  categories  by  plunging  at  once 
into  the  'bacchic  whirl.'  A  preliminary  discussion  of  what  the 
Logic  presupposes,  if;  indeed,  it  is  not  absolutely  necessary  to 
an  adequate  appreciation  of  its  real  problem  and  aim,  is  at  least 
desirable. 

But  this  problem  of  the  presupposition  of  the  Logic  need  not  de- 
is  not  supposed  to  deny  the  reality  of  t*he  factual  side  of  existence;  it  does  not  do 
away  with  'existential  reality.'  That  this  is  Hegel's  position  will  be  developed 
below,  when  he  come  to  ask  concerning  the  relation  that  Hegel  conceives  to  exist 
between  these  two  phases  of  experience.  One  should  never  forget  that,  in  Hegel's 
view  of  the  matter,  the  Logic  has  to  be  supplemented  by  the  Philosophy  of  Nature 
and  the  Philosophy  of  Mind. 


48          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

tain  us  long.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  it  would  seem,  that  in  the 
author's  mind  the  Logic  presupposes  the  result  of  th^  Phenomenology. 
To  justify  this  contention  it  is  necessary  simply  to  let  the  author 
speak  for  himself.  "In  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit,"  he  says 
in  the  larger  Logic,  "I  have  exhibited  consciousness  in  its  progress 
from  its  first  immediate  opposition  of  itself  and  its  object,  on 
to  absolute  knowledge.  This  course  traverses  all  the  forms  of 
the  relation  of  consciousness  to  its  object,  and  has  as  its  result 
the  conception  of  our  science.  This  conception  needs  no  justifi- 
cation here — apart  from  the  fact  that  it  comes  out  as  the  final 
result  in  the  Logic  itself — it  needs  no  justification  here,  because 
it  got  its  justification  there.  And  it  is  capable  of  no  other  justi- 
fication than  just  this  production  of  it  by  consciousness,  all 
whose  own  peculiar  forms  are  resolved  into  this  conception  as 
their  truth.  .  .  .  This  conception  of  the  pure  science  and  the 
deduction  of  it  are  presupposed  in  the  present  treatise,  in  so  far 
as  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit  is  nothing  else  but  such  a  deduction 
of  it"1  Again,  later  in  the  same  work,  we  read:  "It  has  been 
remarked  in  the  introduction  that  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit 
is  the  science  of  consciousness,  the  exhibition  of  the  fact  that 
consciousness  has  the  conception  of  our  science,  that  is,  of  pure 
knowledge  as  its  result.  To  this  extent,  then,  the  Logic  has 
the  science  of  the  phenomenal  Spirit  as  its  presupposition;  for 
that  science  contains  and  displays  the  necessity,  and  hence  the 
proof  of  the  truth  of  the  standpoint  of  pure  knowledge,,  as  well 
as  the  way  in  which  that  standpoint  is  reached."2  In  addition 
to  these  explicit  statements  of  the  Logic,  I  may  be  permitted 
to  quote  one  other  passage  from  the  preface  to  the  Phenomenology 
itself.  Having  traced  in  a  sentence  or  two  the  development  of 
the  Phenomenology  from  the  standpoint  of  sensuous  consciousness 
to  that  of  absolute  knowledge,  where  we  have  completely  medi- 
ated being,  Hegel  continues:  "Just  here  the  Phenomenology  comes 
to  an  end.  In  it  the  way  has  been  prepared  for  the  element  of 

^Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  pp.  31-32. 

*Ibid.,  p.  57.  These  two  quotations  from  the  Logic  are  given  by  Professor 
McGilvary  in  his  admirable  discussion  on  "The  Presupposition  Question  in  Hegel's 
Logic,"  The  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  497  ff.  This  discussion  seems  to  me 
to  put  the  question  beyond  dispute.  If  the  reader  is  interested  in  this  problem 
and  desires  an  exhaustive  discussion  of  it,  he  could  not  do  better  than  to  turn 
up  those  pages. 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  49 

knowledge  wherein  the  moments  of  Spirit  have  unfolded  them- 
selves in  the  form  of  simplicity  which  knows  its  object  as  itself. 
These  moments  no  longer  stand  opposed  to  each  other  as  being 
and  knowing,  but  remain  in  the  simplicity  of  knowledge;  they 
are  the  true  in  the  form  of  the  true,  and  their  difference  is  only 
difference  of  content.  Their  development,  which  in  this  element 
is  organized  into  a  whole,  is  Logic  or  Speculative  Philosophy.'"1 
Comment  on  such  plain  passages  as  these  seems  superfluous: 
Hegel's  meaning  in  them  is  unmistakable.  The  science  of  Logic 
assumes  the  conclusion  of  the  Phenomenology  as  its  starting  point 
and  its  procedure  and  result  are  to  be  judged  only  in  the  light 
of  this  assumption. 

Without  further  discussion  of  this  point,  then,  we  pass  to  the 
main  problem  before  us.  What  is  the  aim  of  the  Logic  in  the 
light  of  its  presupposition?  The  passage  quoted  last  in  the  pre- 
ceding paragraph  gives  us  a  basis  for  an  answer  to  this  question. 
In  this  passage  Hegel  tells  us  what  the  purpose  of  the  Logic  is, 
viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  absolute  knowledge.  The  passage, 
translated  into  simpler  language,  amounts  to  this.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  the  Phenomenology  we  reached  the  true  definition  of 
knowledge;  the  categories  no  longer  appear  as  merely  subjective 
ideas,  or  concepts,  opposed  to  objects  to  which  they  are  quasi, 
mechanically  related,  but  they  show  themselves  to  be  capable 
of  expressing  the  essential  nature  of  objects,  and  so  are  genuinely 
universal  and  objective.  To  organize  these  categories  into  a 
systematic  whole  and  to  set  forth  in  a  scientific  manner  their 
interconnection  is  the  business  of  the  Logic.  In  other  words,  the 
Phenomenology  exhibits  the  essentially  objective  and  universal 
nature  of  that  thought  which  is  the  subject-matter  of  the  Logic; 
the  problem  of  the  Logic  being  to  work  out  the  connection  among 
the  categories  in  abstraction  from  their  essential  relation  to  sen- 
suous experience.  In  the  Phenomenology  thought  has  been  ob- 
served and  its  nature  determined  in  its  relation  to  the  objects 

lWerke,  Bd.  II,  pp.  28-29.  In  this  connection  the  following  passage  from  the 
Philosophische  Propaedeutik  is  significant:  "Science  presupposes  that  the  separation 
of  itself  from  the  realm  of  truth  has  been  done  away  with,  that  Spirit  no  longer 
belongs  to  mere  phenomena,  as  is  the  case  in  the  doctrine  of  consciousness  .  .  . 
Science  does  not  seek  the  truth;  it  is  in  the  truth,  indeed,  it  is  the  truth  itself" 
(Werke,  Bd.  XVIII,  p.  94).  And  this  presupposition  we  have  seen  to  be  the  actual 
result  of  the  Phenomenology. 


or  THE 
UNIVERSITY 


50          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

of  time  and  place,  but  in  the  Logic  temporal  and  spatial  relations 
are  entirely  ignored  and  we  move  in  the  ether  of  pure  thought: 
the  concrete  categories  of  the  Phenomenology  are,  in  the  Logic, 
to  be  considered  for  their  own  sake  and  their  inter-relations 
determined  apart  from  their  experiential  basis.  In  a  sense  it 
may  be  said  that  the  Phenomenology  assumes  that  thought  is 
always  concrete,  its  procedure  consisting  in  an  exhibition  of  the 
necessity  of  this  assumption:  the  Logic,  likewise,  takes  this  for 
granted,  but  as  a  fact  established  by  the  Phenomenology,  and  then 
proceeds  to  investigate  specifically  thought  as  it  is  in  and  for 
itself.  "To  raise  to  knowledge.  .  .  .  those  forms  of  thought 
which  act  instinctively  in  common  consciousness  and  obtain  there 
only  an  obscure  and  incomplete  reality,  to  seize  them  by  thought, 
and  thought  alone,  in  their  most  simple,  abstract,  and  universal 
existence,  to  trace  and  comprehend  them  in  their  relations  and 
in  their  unity — such  is  the  task  of  the  Hegelian  Logic."1 

We  must  guard  the  statement  above  that  the  purpose  of  the 
Logic  is  to  deal  with  thought  in  abstraction  from  its  empirical 
nature.  Such  a  statement  might  be  misconstrued  to  mean  that 
the  Logic  deals  only  with  abstract  thought.  And  such  an  opinion 
would  certainly  not  be  without  justification,  even  on  the  basis  of 
Hegel's  own  assertions.  When  we  consider  his  statements  con- 
cerning the  science  of  logic,  all  that  we  have  hitherto  said  about 
the  concreteness  of  logical  thought  seems  to  have  been  said 
falsely.  For  example,  Hegel  tells  us  in  one  place  that  the  realm 
of  logic  is  "a  kingdom  of  shadows,  the  world  of  simple  essences, 
freed  from  all  sensuous  concretion."2  Elsewhere  he  says  that 
the  content  of  logic  is  "the  presentation  of  God  as  He  is  in  His 
eternal  essence  before  the  creation  of  Nature  or  of  a  finite  mind.1'3 
In  yet  another  passage  we  are  informed  that  logic  "has  to  do  not 
with  perceptions,  nor,  like  geometry,  with  abstract  representa- 
tions of  the  senses,  but  with  pure  abstractions."4  But  such 
deliverances  as  these  are  balanced  by  numerous  counter-assertions 
concerning  the  concreteness  of  the  science  of  logic.  For  example, 
we  meet  such  a  passage  as  this:  "Bare  abstractions  or  formal 
thoughts  are  no  business  of  philosophy,  which  has  to  deal  only 

Wera,  Introduction  a  la  Philosophic  de  Hegel,  pp.  179-180. 

*Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  p.  44.  Vbid.,  p.  33.  *Enc.,  §  19. 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  51 

with  concrete  thoughts."1  Or  this  :  "Logic  has  nothing  to  do 
with  an  act  of  thought  about  something  that  lies  outside  of  the 
thought  as  the  ground  or  basis  of  it,  or  with  forms  that  furnish 
mere  signs  or  marks  of  the  truth.  On  the  contrary,  the  necessary 
forms  and  peculiar  determinations  of  thought  are  the  content 
and  the  highest  truth  itself."2  Furthermore,  we  are  explicitly 
informed3  that  das  begreifende  Denken  rather  than  simply  das 
Denken  is  the  subject  matter  of  logic;  and,  as  I  have  tried  to  show 
in  the  preceding  chapters,  this  is  to  say  that  the  thought  of  the 
science  of  logic  is  concrete. 

The  question  naturally  arises,  Do  not  these  two  sets  of  passages 
contradict  each  other?  Is  not  a  'pure'  abstraction  equivalent 
to  a  'bare'  abstraction,  and  when  Hegel  asserts  that  the  science 
of  logic  has  to  do  with  pure  abstractions  does  he  not  virtually 
deny  the  validity  of  his  claims  for  its  concreteness?  A  considera- 
tion of  this  essential  point  will  give  us  a  clearer  idea  of  the  Logic, 
both  as  to  its  aim  and  problem  and  as  to  its  relation  to  the 
Phenomenology  of  Spirit. 

The  answer  to  the  puzzle  before  us  will  be  found  in  an  apprecia- 
tion of  the  ambiguity  which  attaches  to  the  terms  'abstract*  and 
'concrete.'  Abstract  may  mean  not  concrete  in  the  sense  of  not 
sensuous.  For  example,  it  is  sometimes  said  that  the  phenomena 
of  the  mind  are  abstract,  because  they  cannot  be  touched,  seen, 
heard,  etc.,  but  are  objects  of  thought  only;  objects  of  the  world 
of  sense-perception  would,  in  this  meaning  of  the  terms,  be  con- 
crete. This  is  the  signification  of  the  terms  as  common  sense 
uses  them.  In  this  sense,  Hegel's  logic  is  unquestionably  ab- 
stract, as  he  himself  explicitly  states;  and  when  he  speaks  of 
the  abstractness  of  the  Logic  he  is  thinking  of  this  meaning  of 
the  terms.  The  content  of  the  Logic  may  be  called  abstract, 
he  says,  "if  the  name  concrete  is  restricted  to  the  concrete  facts 
of  sense  or  of  immediate  perception."4  "If  content  means  no 
more  than  what  is  palpable  and  obvious  to  the  senses,  all  philos- 
ophy and  logic  in  particular  must  be  at  once  acknowledged  to 
be  void  of  content,  that  is  to  say,  of  content  perceptible  to  the 
senses."5  Of  course,  all  sciences  which  have  to  do  with  objects 


.,  §  82.  *Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  pp.  33-34. 

3Cf.  ibid.,  pp.  24-25;  see  also  Enc.,  §  160.  *Enc.,  §  160:  also  §  164. 

5Enc.,  §  133,  lecture-note. 


52          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

not  perceptible  to  the  senses  are,  from  this  point  of  view,  abstract. 
But  there  is  another  meaning  of  the  terms  abstract  and  concrete. 
An  object  may  be  abstract  in  the  sense  of  being  unreal,  or  taken 
apart  from  its  relations;  while  the  concrete  object  is  the  object 
seen  in  its  deepest  and  truest  significance.  The  categories  of 
mathematics,  for  example,  may  be  said  to  be  more  abstract  than 
the  categories  of  ethical  science;  and  the  ideals  that  seriously 
influence  our  lives  for  weal  or  woe  are  more  concrete  than  the 
air-castles  which  we  build  in  our  day-dreams.  The  abstract  in 
this  signification,  Hegel  strongly  insists,  is  not  the  realm  of 
philosophy:  it  is  just  the  aim  of  philosophy  to  get  rid  of  all  ab- 
straction and  to  see  the  world  as  concrete.1 

From  these  considerations  Hegel's  answer  to  the  charge  of 
inconsistency  in  his  statements  concerning  the  science  of  logic 
is  plain.  'Pure'  abstraction  is  not  equivalent  to  'bare'  abstrac- 
tion; the  former  is  characteristic  of  all  thought,  the  latter  only 
of  formal  thought.  In  that  its  subject  matter  is  thought  and 
not  the  immediately  given  of  sense-perception,  logic  may  be 
said  to  busy  itself  with  abstractions,  to  move  in  a  realm  of  shades; 
but  in  this  way  every  mental  science  is  abstract,  and  might  be 
metaphorically  described  as  a  'kingdom  of  shadows.'  In  that 
its  subject  matter  is  the  Notion,  however,  that  is  to  say,  concrete 
thought,  the  Logic  is  not  only  not  abstract,  but  is  the  most  con- 
crete of  the  sciences.2  "The  Notion  is  not  palpable  to  the  touch, 
and  when  we  are  engaged  with  it,  we  must  be  dead  to  hearing 
and  seeing.  And  yet  .  .  .  the  Notion  is  the  only  true  concrete; 
for  no  other  reason  than  because  it  involves  Being  and  Essence, 
and  the  total  wealth  of  these  two  spheres  with  them,  merged 
in  the  unity  of  thought."3  We  shall  have  to  return  to  this 
point  later. 

And  all  this  shows  us  again  the  essential  difference,  as  well  as 
the  fundamental  similarity,  between  the  Logic  and  the  Phe- 
nomenology. They  both  deal  with  consciousness;  they  are  both 
expositions  of  the  essential  nature  of  thought.  But  whereas  the 
Phenomenology  is  interested  in  consciousness  primarily  as  a  sub- 

*Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  II,  p.  35;  also  Enc.,  §  82. 

2See  in  this  connection  Caird,  Hegel,  p.  157;  Wallace,  Prolegomena  to  Hegel's 
Logic,  pp.  302  ff.;  and  McGilvary,  op.  cit.,  pp.  504-507. 
*Enc.,  §  160.     See  also  §  43,  lecture-note. 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  53 

ject-object  relation  and  endeavors  to  work  out  the  significance 
of  this  relation,  the  Logic  is  interested  primarily  in  disclosing  the 
organic  nature  of  thought  and  so  confines  its  attention  to  the 
thought  activity  in  and  for  itself.  The  one  is  an  interpretation 
of  thought  in  its  relation  to  its  object :  the  other  is  an  interpreta- 
tion of  the  categories  as  they  are  in  themselves,  temporarily  held 
in  isolation  from  their  empirical  setting.  Hegel  has  stated  this 
distinction  in  the  preface  to  the  first  edition  of  the  larger  Logic : 
"In  this  manner" — dialectically — "I  have  tried  to  present  con- 
sciousness in  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit.  Consciousness  is 
Spirit  in  the  form  of  concrete  knowledge,  knowledge  shut  in  in 
the  form  of  externality;  but  the  motion  of  the  form  of  this 
object,  as  the  development  of  all  natural  and  spiritual  life,  rests 
only  upon  the  nature  of  the  pure  essences  that  constitute  the 
content  of  the  Logic.  As  phenomenal  Spirit,  which  in  its  own 
manner  frees  itself  from  its  immediacy  and  external  concretion, 
consciousness  develops  into  pure  knowledge  which  appropriates 
as  its  subject  matter  those  pure  essences  as  they  are  in  and  for 
themselves  .  .  .  Thus  is  given  the  relation  of  the  science  that 
I  have  called  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit  to  the  Logic  "^ 

To  sum  up  briefly,  our  conclusion  so  far  is  this.  The  Logic 
has  as  its  presupposition  the  whole  development  of  the  Phenomen- 
ology of  Spirit.  The  Phenomenology,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
asserts  the  inseparability  of  thought  and  reality  and  attempts 
to  define  for  us  the  true  nature  of  thought.  The  Logic  presup- 
poses this  conclusion,  taking  for  granted  that  thought  is  really 
as  it  is  here  defined;  and  in  the  light  of  this  presupposition  its 
aim  is  to  give  a  more  detailed  account  of  the  nature  of  thought, 
to  work  out  the  organic  unity  which  exists  among  the  several 
categories  of  thought.2 

Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  pp.  7-8. 

2There  are  two  further  points  in  connection  with  the  Logic,  which,  though  they 
are  hardly  relevant  to  our  present  purpose,  should  not  be  passed  over  in  silence. 
I  refer  to  the  problems  concerning  the  beginning  of  the  Logic  and  its  empirical 
basis.  One  or  two  general  remarks  here  will  have  to  suffice. 

Concerning  the  beginning  of  the  Logic,  it  may  be  said  without  fear  of  successful 
contradiction  that  the  first  of  the  categories  is  not  a  lineal  descendant  from  the 
conclusion  of  the  Phenomenology;  the  Phenomenology  is  not  the  presupposition  of 
the  Logic  in  this  sense.  To  be  sure,  the  category  of  Being  must  be  viewed  in  the 
light  of  the  Phenomenology,  for  without  the  development  of  the  Phenomenology 


54          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

Such,  then,  being  the  relation  between  the  Logic  and  the  Phe- 
nomenology, we  pass  on  to  ask  concerning  the  relation  between 
the  Logic  and  the  other  parts  of  the  Encyclopedia.  This  is  a 
much  debated  problem  in  connection  with  Hegel's  philosophy, 
and  upon  its  solution  depends  the  integrity  of  the  system  as  a 
system.  In  accordance  with  our  determination  not  to  anticipate 
the  following  discussion,  we  shall  here  confine  ourselves  to  the 
formal  aspect  of  the  problem:  as  little  as  possible  will  be  said 
concerning  the  real  ontological  significance  of  the  Logic.  The 
question  now  before  us  is :  As  regards  the  systematic  arrangement 

Being  would  hardly  be  possible  as  a  concrete  category.  And  in  this  respect  the 
beginning  of  the  Logic  is  a  mediated  immediacy,  as  Hegel  himself  suggests. 
(Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  pp.  58,  59.)  But  when  we  turn  from  the  Phenomenology 
and  look  upon  the  development  of  the  logical  categories  as  such,  Being  becomes 
very  abstract.  Thus  viewed,  it  is  not  on  a  level  with  absolute  knowledge,  but 
rather,  one  is  inclined  to  say,  with  the  beginning  of  the  Phenomenology:  in  the 
realm  of  the  Logic,  Being  is  what  Sensuous  Consciousness  is  in  the  Phenomenology 
— the  most  abstract  and  unmediated  standpoint.  In  a  word,  then,  we  may  say  that 
the  beginning  of  the  Logic,  viewed  as  such,  is  abstract  and  immediate;  but  that 
it  must  be  regarded  as  in  a  sense  mediated,  since  it  presupposes  the  entire  develop- 
ment of  the  Phenomenology.  (For  further  discussion  of  this  problem  see  Professor 
McGilvary  and  Mr.  McTaggart.  Mr.  McTaggart's  position  entirely  ignores  the 
Phenomenology,  and  so  does  not  take  account  of  the  mediated  aspect  of  Being. 

It  has  been  objected  that  Hegel  illogically  smuggles  experience  into  the  Logic 
as  the  basis  of  its  development.  (Cf.  Trendelenburg,  op.  cit.,  pp.  36  ff.;  and  Haym, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  318  ff.)  This  objection  seems  to  be  groundless.  Of  course  the  basis  of 
the  Logic  is  experience,  but  Hegel  is  not  inconsistent  in  making  it  so.  As  we  have 
pointed  out  above,  the  presupposition  of  the  Logic  is  concrete  experience;  for  it 
is  with  concrete  experience  that  the  Phenomenology  has  to  do.  To  assert,  there- 
fore, that  the  Logic  deals  with  blank  universals,  and  that  it  gets  its  only  plausibility 
by  dragging  experience  in  at  the  back  door  after  having  ostentatiously  kicked  it 
out  at  the  front,  is  to  show  plainly  that  the  real  problem  and  presupposition  of  the 
Logic  have  been  misconceived.  The  objection  is  an  admirable  illustration  of  the 
danger  involved  in  an  attempt  to  criticize  the  Logic  taken  apart  from  its  context 
in  the  system.  And  so  far  as  one  can  see,  Mr.  McTaggart's  answer  to  Trendelen- 
burg's  objection  illustrates  the  same  danger.  (Cf.  op.  cit.,  §§  30-43.)  If  one 
were  compelled  to  confine  oneself  to  the  smaller  Logic  for  data  on  the  problem — 
as  Mr.  McTaggart  does — one  feels  that  the  verdict  would  have  to  be  in  favor  of 
Trendelenburg's  position.  It  seems  more  than  doubtful  whether  Mr.  McTaggart's 
argument  is  adequate  to  meet  the  objection  against  which  it  is  advanced,  simply 
because  it  fails  to  take  the  right  point  of  departure.  Personally,  I  cannot  see  that 
the  argument  has  at  all  succeeded  in  establishing  the  point  at  issue;  and,  striking  in 
where  it  does,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  hopelessly  defective.  In  point  of  fact,  however, 
both  objector  and  defender  are  beating  the  air.  For  both  the  objection  and  the 
defense  fail  to  take  any  account  of  the  author's  real  position,  which  can  be  seen 
only  in  the  light  of  the  Phenomenology. 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  55 

of  the  Encyclopedia,  what  is  the  relation  of  the  Logic  to  the 
Philosophy  of  Nature  and  the  Philosophy  of  Mind? 

If  at  this  juncture  we  turn  to  Hegel  for  light  on  the  problem, 
we  are  sadly  disappointed;  very  little  light  is  vouchsafed  us. 
His  statements  on  the  point  are  few,  and  those  few  are  couched 
in  such  metaphorical  terms  it  is  almost  impossible  to  attach  a 
definite  meaning  to  them.  But  one  fact  seems  indisputable,  the 
fact,  namely,  that  Hegel  believed  necessary  and  actually  tried 
to  make  some  kind  of  transition  from  one  part  of  the  Encyclo- 
pedia to  another.  Let  us  see  what  he  has  to  say  about  this 
transition. 

In  the  second  edition  of  his  Hegelianism  and  Personality1 
Professor  Pringle-Pattison  has  summarized  Hegel's  account  of 
the  transition  as  follows:  "The  Absolute  Idea,  Hegel  says  in  the 
larger  'Logic,'2  is  'still  logical,  still  confined  to  the  element  of 
pure  thoughts.  ,  .  .  But  inasmuch  as  the  pure  idea  of  knowledge 
is  thus,  so  far,  shut  up  in  a  species  of  subjectivity,  it  is  impelled 
to  remove  this  limitation;  and  thus  the  pure  truth,  the  last 
result  of  the  Logic,  becomes  also  the  beginning  of  another  sphere 
and  science.'  The  Idea,  he  recalls  to  us,  has  been  defined  as 
'the  absolute  unity  of  the  pure  notion  and  its  reality' — 'the  pure 
notion  which  is  related  only  to  itself;  but  if  this  is  so,  the  two 
sides  of  this  relation  are  one,  and  they  collapse,  as  it  were,  'into 
the  immediacy  of  Being.'  'The  Idea  as  the  totality  in  this  form 
is  Nature.  This  determining  of  itself,  however,  is  not  a  process 
of  becoming  or  a  transition'  such  as  we  have  from  stage  to  stage 
in  the  Logic.  'The  passing  over  is  rather  to  be  understood  thus 
—that  the  Idea  freely  lets  itself  go,  being  absolutely  sure  of  itself 
and  at  rest  in  itself.  On  account  of  this  freedom,  the  form  of  its 
determination  is  likewise  absolutely  free — namely,  the  externality 
of  space  and  time  existing  absolutely  for  itself  without  sub- 
jectivity. A  few  lines  lower  he  speaks  of  the  'resolve  (Entschluss) 
of  the  pure  Idea  to  determine  itself  as  external  Idea.'  Turning 
to  the  Encyclopedia  we  find  at  the  end  of  the  smaller  Logic,  a 
more  concise  but  substantially  similar  statement.  'The  Idea 
which  exists  for  itself,  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  this 
unity  with  itself,  is  Perception ;  and  the  Idea  as  it  exists  for  per- 

aPp.  111-113.  *Werke,  Bd.  V,  pp.  342-343. 


56          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

ception  is  nature  .  .  .  The  absolute  freedom  of  the  Idea  con- 
sists in  this,  that  in  the  absolute  truth  of  itself  (i.  e.,  according 
to  Hegel's  usage,  when  it  has  attained  the  full  perfection  of  the 
form  which  belongs  to  it),  it  resolves  to  let  the  element  of  its 
particularity — the  immediate  idea,  as  its  own  reflection — go  forth 
freely  from  itself  as  Nature.'1  And  in  the  lecture-note  which 
follows  we  read,  as  in  the  larger  Logic — 'We  have  now  returned 
to  the  notion  of  the  Idea  with  which  we  began.  This  return  to 
the  beginning  is  also  an  advance.  That  with  which  we  began 
was  Being,  abstract  Being,  and  now  we  have  the  Idea  as  Being ; 
but  this  existent  Idea  is  Nature. ' ' 

Such  is  Hegel's  account  of  the  transition  from  the  Logic  to  the 
Philosophy  of  Nature.  Confining  our  attention  for  the  present 
to  the  aspect  of  the  problem  before  us,  let  us  ask  concerning  the 
significance  and  justification  of  this  attempted  transition.  There 
seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  Hegel  believed  the  transition  necessary 
and  that  he  did  attempt  to  make  it.  The  question  is,  Why,  and 
with  what  success?  One  or  two  preliminary  considerations  will 
lead  us  to  an  answer. 

In  the  first  place,  I  think  we  must  agree  with  Haldane  that 
the  transition  in  question  is  logical  only,  not  temporal.2  If  what 
we  have  been  arguing  is  true,  namely,  that  the  Notion  is  genuine- 
ly objective  and  universal,  this  conclusion  is  forced  upon  us: 
the  Absolute  Idea  would  then  include  in  itself  the  fullness  of 
Nature.  And  Hegel  teaches  us  that  the  transition  is  only  logical. 
For  he  insists  that  the  Idea  cannot  be  thought  of  as  existing 
anterior  to  or  independent  of  Nature;  and  that,  when  it  passes 
into  Nature,  it  does  not  come  into  possession  of  a  content  which 
before  was  alien  to  it.3  On  the  contrary,  we  are  informed  that 
the  Idea  is  nothing  but  completed  Being,  the  abstract  immediacy 
of  Being  made  concrete.4  And  so  such  an  account  of  the  relation 
between  the  Idea  and  its  manifestations  as  the  following  from 
Falckenberg  may  be  dismissed  at  once  as  at  best  misleading; 
indeed,  if  it  means  what  it  says,  it  is  ridiculously  false:  "The 
absolute  or  the  logical  Idea  exists  first  as  a  system  of  antemundane 
concepts,  then  it  descends  into  the  unconscious  sphere  of  nature, 

lEnc.,  §  244.  2Cf.  The  Pathway  to  Reality,  Vol.  II,  pp.  68-69. 

3Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  VII,  i.  pp.  25  ff.;  Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  44;  Enc.,  §  43,  lecture-note. 
4Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  341.     See  also  Enc.,  §  244,  lecture-note. 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  57 

awakens  to  self -consciousness  in  man,  realizes  its  content  in 
social  institutions,  in  order,  finally,  in  art,  religion,  and  science 
to  return  to  itself  enriched  and  completed,  i.  e.,  to  attain  a  higher 
absoluteness  than  that  of  the  beginning."1  As  Hegel  conceives 
the  matter,  the  Idea  does  indeed  enrich  itself  by  passing  through 
these  various  stages  of  its  existence,  or,  rather,  by  exhibiting 
these  differentiations  of  itself,  but  it  does  so  only  by  showing 
that  these  differentiations  are  essential  aspects  of  itself  and  by 
disclosing  itself  as  inherent  in  them  from  the  first.  The  Idea  is 
prior,  not  in  point  of  time,  but  solely  in  the  logical  sense. 

In  the  second  place,  as  Vera  suggests,2  the  true  significance  of 
the  problem  involved  in  this  transition,  as  well  as  the  correct 
solution  of  the  problem,  can  be  had  only  in  the  light  of  Hegel's 
philosophy  as  a  whole.  In  a  very  important  sense  the  Phenomen- 
ology of  Spirit  is  the  presupposition  of  the  entire  Encyclopedia. 
As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  the  aim  of  the  Phenomenology 
is  simply  to  show  what  are  the  implications  of  knowledge,  and 
to  prove,  against  Kant,  that  in  knowledge  as  thus  developed  we 
have  the  expression  of  ultimate  reality.  Now,  as  I  think  we  must 
conceive  the  matter,  the  Encyclopedia  simply  attempts  a  more 
detailed  investigation  and  a  more  elaborate  exposition  of  this 
position.  We  might  put  it  thus.  In  the  Phenomenology  we  be- 
gin with  all  the  reality  we  know  anything  about,  namely,  experi- 
ence, and  we  proceed  to  develop  its  implications  as  regards  its 
nature  as  a  subject-object  relation.  The  Logic  abstracts  from 
this  concrete  whole  and  examines  one  aspect  of  it,  which  here 
we  might  call  the  subject-aspect;  while  the  Philosophy  of  Nature 
and  the  Philosophy  of  Mind  deal  with  other  aspects  of  the  same 
whole,  that  is,  they  might  be  said  to  define  reality  in  its  object- 
significance.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  when  we  arrive 
at  the  category  of  absolute  knowledge  in  the  Phenomenology, 
we  have  reached,  not  a  new  kind  of  experience,  but  only  a  more 
concrete  point  of  view  in  our  common  everyday  experience ;  and 
this  point  of  view  is  taken  by  the  other  parts  of  the  Encyclopedia 
as  well  as  by  the  Logic.  Though  Haym  unfortunately  failed 
to  appreciate  the  full  significance  of  his  words,  still  he  is  essentially 
right  when  he  says  that  the  Phenomenology  "is  really  the  whole 

^History  of  Modern  Philosophy,  trans.,  p.  489.  2See  op.  cit.,  p.  181. 


58          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

system.  .  .  .  The  later  expression  of  the  system  in  its  articulated 
totality  is  only  a  more  detailed  exposition  and  completion  of  that 
which  is  contained  in  the  Phenomenology."1  And  it  seems  to  me 
that  this  fact  about  the  Encyclopedia  is  not  to  be  forgotten  or 
overlooked,  if  we  are  truly  to  appreciate  the  relation  of  its 
several  parts  to  each  other. 

If  the  preceding  considerations  are  substantially  true,  then  we 
are  forced  to  conclude  (a)  that  the  Logic,  Philosophy  of  Nature 
and  Philosophy  of  Mind  are  only  three  points  of  view  from  which 
one  organic  whole  is  observed  and  interpreted.  The  first  inves- 
tigates the  more  strictly  cognitive  side  of  experience;  the  second 
has  to  do  with  its  crass  objective,  its  sensuous  aspect;  while 
the  third  undertakes  to  interpret  its  spiritual  values.  As  Kuno 
Fischer  points  out,  each  in  a  sense  has  the  same  content :  the  dif- 
ference among  them  lies  rather  in  the  form  which  that  content 
assumes.2  Each  has  a  unique  sphere  and  claim  of  its  own,  but 
neither  is  the  whole  of  reality  nor  can  it  be  ontologically  separated 
from  the  others.  Thought  does  indeed,  according  to  Hegel, 
include  its  object,  whether  that  object  be  crass  matter  or  the  other 
so-called  functions  of  the  mind;  but  it  includes  by  subsuming, 
by  taking  up  and  preserving  in  itself.  So  other  sciences  besides 
that  of  pure  thought  have  their  raison  d'etre?  But  because 
thought  does  thus  include  its  object,  we  must  say  (b)  that  in  a 
sense  the  Logic  comprehends  the  other  two  parts  of  the  Encyclo- 
p&dia*  And  so  Haym's  criticism  loses  its  force  and  becomes  a 
simple  statement  of  fact:  "So  muss  die  Logik  die  ganze  Philos- 
ophic sein,  so  muss  mit  ihr  das  System  schliessen."5  This  last 
point  will  come  up  for  direct  discussion  later  in  the  present 
chapter. 

But  it  will  be  objected  that  on  this  score  we  are  forced  to 
deny  the  necessity  of  the  transition  from  the  Logic  as  Hegel  has 
attempted  it.  And  I  have  purposely  courted  the  objection  in 

1Hegel  und  seine  Zeit,  p.  255. 

2Cf.  Gesch.  d.  n.  Philosophie,  Bd.  VIII,  i,  p.  574. 

3This  point  should  never  be  forgotten  in  connection  with  Hegel's  system.  He 
never  denied  the  necessity  of  a  science  of  nature  and  a  science  of  social  values. 

4Hegel  tells  us  that  "the  other  philosophical  sciences,  the  Philosophy  of  Nature 
and  the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  take  the  place,  as  it  were,  of  an  Applied  Logic,  and  that 
Logic  is  the  soul  which  animates  them  both"  (Enc.,  §  24,  lecture-note  (2)). 

6Op.  cit.,  p.  305. 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  59 

order  to  emphasize  my  agreement  with  it.  If  what  has  been 
said  above  is  true — and  its  validity  is  attested  to  by  our  entire 
discussion  of  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  thought — then 
we  must  give  up  the  idea  of  a  dialectical  transition  from  one  to 
another  part  of  the  Encyclopaedia.  Such  a  transition  is  impossible 
were  it  necessary,  but  it  is  not  necessary.  Its  necessity  has  been 
obviated  by  the  result  of  the  Phenomenology;  for  this  work  has 
shown  that  in  the  dialectic  of  the  categories  the  object  cannot 
be  entirely  absent,  even  though,  for  methodological  purposes  its 
presence  be  as  far  as  possible  neglected.  A  dialectical  transition 
here  would  in  fact  be  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  Hegel's 
philosophy;  it  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  Idea  is  a  mere 
abstraction  which  demands  a  content  to  make  it  real,  an  abstract 
universal  to  be  particularized.  Hegel  himself  at  times  seems  to 
feel  this  difficulty,  although,  so  far  as  I  arn  aware,  he  never 
explicitly  expresses  himself  on  the  point.  For  example,  his  very 
frank  recognition  that  the  transition  which  he  attempts  from  the 
Logic  to  the  Philosophy  of  Nature  is  different  from  the  transition 
of  the  subjective  notion  into  objectivity,  or  of  subjective  purpose 
into  life,  one  would  think  is  not  entirely  without  significance.1 
Again  elsewhere  he  seems  to  show  that  he  fears  the  transition 
because  he  takes  pains  to  warn  us  against  misconceiving  its  real 
import.2  And  in  the  larger  Logic,  at  the  beginning  of  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  Absolute  Idea,  there  occurs  a  passage  which  is 
suggestive  in  this  connection:  "Since  it  [i.  e.,  the  Idea]  contains 
all  determination  within  itself,  and  its  essence  is  to  return  to 
itself  through  its  self-determination  or  particularity,  it  possesses 
different  forms;  and  it  is  the  business  of  philosophy  to  trace  it 
in  these  forms" — such  as  nature,  art,  and  religion.3 

But  whether  Hegel  had  any  such  feeling  as  I  have  attributed  to 
him  or  whether  he  did  not,  the  fact  remains  that  he  felt  called 
upon  to  make  the  leap  from  the  Logic  to  the  Philosophy  of  Nature. 
He  explicitly  asserts  that  "  the  last  result  of  the  Logic  becomes 
also  the  beginning  of  another  sphere  and  science,"  which  science 
is,  of  course,  the  Philosophy  of  Nature.  If  now,  as  we  have 
argued,  this  transition  is  not  only  not  necessary,  but,  what  is 
more  important,  is  really  inconsistent  with  the  logical  bias  of 

!Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  342.  *Enc.,  §  43-  *Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  318. 


60  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

the  system,then  the  question  why  the  author  deemed  it  neces- 
sary becomes  a  very  pressing  one.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  does 
attempt  the  transition:  what  is  to  be  said  about  the  fact? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is,  in  my  opinion,  not  far  to  seek. 
Hegel  was  very  much  in  earnest  about  this  transition,  and  he  was 
in  earnest  about  it  for  the  reason  that  with  it  stands  or  falls  his 
system  as  a  system.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  secret  of  his 
anxiety  concerning  the  matter.  Like  Kant,  he  was  bound  down 
to  his  system;  he  could  not  get  beyond  the  machinery  of  his 
dialectic.  The  Logic,  Philosophy  of  Nature,  and  Philosophy  of 
Mind  had  to  form  a  triad  of  thesis,  antithesis,  and  synthesis, 
else  the  formal  coherence  and  symmetry  of  the  system  would 
have  been  lost.  The  scheme  of  the  system  demands  a  continuous 
linear  development  from  one  phase  of  it  to  another — an  absolutely 
necessary  development.  If  the  dialectic  is  the  absolute  and 
universal  method,  why  is  there  not  a  dialectical  passage  from  the 
Logic  to  nature?  There  simply  must  be — and  there  was.  Such 
procedure  is  due  to  the  fact  that  Hegel  did  not  always  raise  the 
spirit  of  his  system  above  the  letter.  The  Method,  the  unerring 
and  absolute  method  of  the  dialectic,  had  to  be  looked  out  for  and 
its  claims  catered  to  regardless  of  consequences;  and  only  too 
frequently  was  the  method  seen  in  a  false  light  and  its  claims 
misinterpreted.  If  at  all  times  Hegel  could  have  identified  his 
method  with  his  docrtine  of  begreifendes  Denken,  the  relation  of 
the  various  parts  of  the  Encyclopedia  to  each  other  would  have 
been  differently  conceived  and  the  position  of  the  Logic  in  the 
system  would  have  been  more  clearly  and  intelligibly  set  forth. 

Some  commentators  seem  disposed  to  justify  this  leap  from  the 
Logic.  Noel,  for  example,  goes  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  there 
is  a  connection  between  the  Logic  and  what  follows  in  the  system 
analogous  to  the  connection  among  the  several  sections  of  the 
Logic.1  "There  must  be,"  he  says,  "  a  dialectical  passage  from 
the  Logic  to  Nature.  The  logical  Idea  must  negate  itself  and 
pass  into  its  contrary."  But  there  seems  to  be  no  very  good 
reason  why  the  logical  Idea  should,  just  at  this  point,  negate 
itself  and  pass  into  Nature.  Indeed,  Noel's  position  seems  to 
overlook  Hegel's  own  explicit  statement,  quoted  above,  to  the 

1Cf.  La  Logique  de  Hegel,  pp.  116  ff. 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  6l 

effect  that  the  transition  here  in  question  is  different  from  that 
which  obtains  among  the  categories  of  the  Logic.  In  this  respect 
Mr.  McTaggart  is,  perhaps,  truer  to  Hegel.  It  is  true  that  he 
asserts,  "Granted  pure  thought,  we  are  compelled  by  the  neces- 
sity of  the  dialectic  to  grant  the  existence  of  some  sensuous 
intuition  also."  But  he  recognizes  Hegel's  statement  that  the 
transition  to  the  Philosophy  of  Nature  has  its  own  peculiar  char- 
acteristics.1 The  fundamentals  of  Mr.  McTaggart's  position 
seem  to  be:  that  the  transition  is  both  analytic  and  synthetic; 
that  it  really  represents  the  phases  of  thesis,  antithesis,  and 
synthesis ;  and  that  Spirit,  as  the  truth  and  goal  of  the  movement, 
is  present  even  from  the  beginning.  In  so  far  as  this  position 
insists  that  in  the  Idea  both  Nature  and  Spirit  are  involved,  one 
is  not  inclined  to  call  it  in  question.  But  does  this  insistence 
make  the  transition  from  the  Absolute  Idea  to  Nature  dialec- 
tically  necessary?  Merely  by  observing  the  Idea  as  the  highest 
of  the  logical  categories,  are  we  forced  to  posit  nature  as  its 
counterpart?  If  so,  are  we  thereby  made  aware  of  the  implicit 
appearance  of  Spirit,  even  before  it  looms  on  the  horizon?  Even 
if  we  grant,  with  Noel,  that  logic  contains  in  germ  philosophy 
in  its  entirety,  and  with  Mr.  McTaggart  that,  if  there  were  a 
transition  at  the  end  of  the  Logic,  it  would  necessarily  be  both 
analytic  and  synthetic,  still  the  essential  point  here  has  not  been 
touched.  Is  the  transition  a  dialectical  necessity?  If  so,  why 
is  it  so?  I  confess  myself  unable  to  see  any  dialectical  advance 
from  the  end  of  the  Logic  to  the  beginning  of  the  Philosophy  of 
Nature,  or  even  from  the  Idea  to  a  matter  of  sensuous  intuition. 
Is  it  any  less  reasonable  to  say  that  the  first  category  of  the 
Logic  should  alienate  itself  in  its  other  than  that  the  last  category 
should  do  so?  Is  not  the  category  of  Being  as  likely  to  go  forth 
into  its  opposite  as  is  the  Absolute  Idea?  Certainly  so,  if  as 
Mr.  McTaggart  seems  to  suggest,  the  fact  that  the  Absolute 
Idea  is  'pure  thought'  is  the  impetus  of  the  movement;  for  Being 
is  just  as  much  'pure  thought'  as  is  the  Absolute  Idea.  In  fact, 
it  would  seem  to  be  more  reasonable  to  return  to  the  beginning 
of  the  Logic  and  take  the  sensuous  'alienation'  of  Being  as  the 
point  of  departure  for  the  Natut 'philosophic:  at  any  rate,  in 
lop.  tit,,  §  27. 


62  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

this  event  we  should  have  the  privilege  of  proceeding  on  lines 
analogous  to  those  followed  in  the  development  of  the  Logic, 
namely,  from  the  less  to  the  more  determinate.  But  whether 
we  put  ourselves  at  the  first  category  or  at  the  'last  result'  of  the 
Logic,  hoping  thereby  to  discover  a  beginning  for  our  new  'sphere 
and  science/  we  find  ourselves  baffled.  In  no  event  do  we  find 
that  mysterious  secret  power  that  would  drive  us  on  to  Nature. 
And  we  fail  for  the  somewhat  obvious  reason  that  we  are  already 
at  Nature  and  do  not  need  to  be  driven  to  it.  This  so-called 
transition  can  be  defended  only  on  the  basis  of  the  Phenomenology: 
there  it  has  received  the  only  justification  which  it  needs  and  of 
which  it  is  capable.  But — and  this  is  the  important  point — the 
conclusion  of  the  Phenomenology  destroys  at  once  the  necessity 
and  the  possibility  of  such  a  transition;  and  from  this  point  of 
view  the  dialectical  passage  becomes  nothing  more  than  a  mis- 
guided zeal  for  schematization.  One  must  feel  that  neither  Noel 
nor  Mr.  McTaggart  has  succeeded  in  making  the  leap  plausible: 
if  they  had  succeeded,  one  is  inclined  to  say  that  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  the  Hegelian  Logic  would  have  been  greatly  diminished, 
if  not  completely  destroyed. 

It  might  be  argued  in  support  of  this  transition  from  the  Logic 
that  Hegel  is  simply  recognizing  here,  explicitly,  the  presupposi- 
tion that  has  been  implicit  in  the  entire  development  of  the 
categories.  For  what  is  a  dialectical  transition?  Does  it  not 
consist  simply  in  making  explicit  a  presupposition?  And  |do  we 
not  at  the  end  of  the  Logic  recognize  what  has  been  a  presupposi- 
tion all  through,  namely,  the  spiritual  union  of  thought  and  its 
object?  Thus  the  circle  is  completed,  the  end  is  one  with  the 
beginning.  And  with  this  the  necessity  of  a  more  concrete  treat- 
ment is  apparent — a  treatment  that  shall  take  into  full  account 
the  presupposition  thus  disclosed.  And  so  we  are  brought  at 
once  into  the  realm  of  Nature  and  of  Spirit. 

This,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  all  that  Hegel  could  consistently 
have  meant  by  the  transition  in  question.  It  could  signify 
nothing  more  than  a  change  in  point  of  view,  if  the  lesson  of  the 
Phenomenology  is  to  hold  here.  One  is  inclined  to  think  that  this 
is  really  the  essence  of  the  transition.  But  the  question  in- 
evitably arises  why  the  presupposition  is  peculiarly  forced  upon 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  63 

us  in  the  Absolute  Idea.  Is  not  the  recognition  of  the  presup- 
position as  explicit  in  the  first  categories  of  the  Logic  as  it  is  in 
the  last?  Does  not  Hegel  make  constant  appeal  to  it  throughout 
the  whole  dialectical  advance?  Why,  then,  should  the  presup- 
position be  forced  to  the  fore  in  the  Absolute  Idea  as  it  is  not  in 
any  of  the  other  categories?  It  might  be  answered,  Because  at 
the  Absolute  Idea  we  have  a  definition  of  reality  itself.  Even 
so,  how  was  this  definition  arrived  at  apart  from  the  phenomena 
of  Nature  and  Spirit?  The  fact  is  that  it  was  not;  for  the  result 
of  the  Phenomenology  is  recognized  at  every  stage  of  the  dialectical 
development  of  the  categories,  and  this  necessitates  the  inclusion 
by  the  Idea  of  these  phenomena  of  Nature  and  Spirit.  So  far 
as  I  can  see,  the  objective  aspect  of  existence  is  no  more  clearly 
and  necessarily  evident  in  any  one  of  the  categories  than  it  is 
in  all;  we  are  not  forced  to  take  account  of  it  in  the  Idea  in  a 
manner  different  from  that  in  which  it  forces  itself  upon  us  in  the 
categories  of  Being  and  Essence.  If,  when  Hegel  reached  the 
end  of  the  Logic,  he  had  contented  himself  with  asserting  what 
the  above  argument  would  have  him  assert,  namely,  that  the 
time  had  come  for  us  to  turn  to  a  detailed  consideration  of  those 
phenomena  that  had  not  been  explicitly  taken  into  account  by 
the  Logic,  if  he  had  simply  told  us  that  at  the  Idea  the  Logic 
reached  its  conclusion  and  that  he  here  proposed  to  change  his 
point  of  view,  we  could  have  understood  him:  the  necessity  of 
the  change  and  the  partially  abstract  nature  of  the  Logic,  had 
already  been  sufficiently  explained  to  us  in  the  Phenomenology. 
But  when  he  goes  on  to  urge  that  the  Absolute  Idea  must,  by  a 
dialectical  necessity,  alienate  itself  in  its  Other,  we  begin  to 
wonder  where  the  categories  of  Being  came  from  and  how  we 
ever  succeeded  in  getting  from  this  abstract  view  of  the  world  to 
the  standpoint  of  the  Idea.  We  had  thought  all  along  that  in 
the  Idea  we  were  at  last  in  touch  with  reality;  but  when  this 
mysterious  alienation  begins  to  take  place,  the  earth  trembles 
under  us  and  we  wonder  if  we  have  been  deceived.  At  this 
juncture  the  Phenomenology  comes  to  our  relief,  when  we  remem- 
ber that  its  conclusion  has  made  the  transition  both  unnecessary 
and  impossible.  The  argument  before  us  does  indeed  state  what 
Hegel  must  have  meant,  if  he  remained  true  to  the  principles  of 


64  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

his  doctrine ;  but  it  hardly  explains  what  he  seems  actually  to  have 
attempted. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  this  would-be  transition  from  the 
Logic  must  be  given  up.  And,  furthermore,  we  must  agree  with 
Professor  Pringle-Pattison  that  to  admit  so  much  involves  a 
surrender  of  Hegel's  system  as  he  left  it.  He  is  systematic  to  a 
fault.  Within  the  Logic  itself  the  author's  mania  for  system 
often  clouds,  if  it  does  not  completely  hide,  the  issue;  the  omnipo- 
tent Dialectic  Method,  rather  than  the  organic  development  of 
thought,  is  only  too  frequently  the  object  of  interest.  And,  un- 
iortunately,  even  the  data  of  nature  and  history  are  sometimes 
forced  into  this  formal  scheme  whether  they  will  or  no.  What 
under  other  circumstances  might  have  been  a  very  simple  change 
in  point  of  view  is,  as  we  have  just  seen,  made  incomprehensible 
and  misleading  by  the  same  absurd  reverence  for  the  triadic 
movement  of  the  'absolute  method.'  No  doubt  one  may  easily 
be  too  severely  critical  of  this  aspect  of  Hegel's  philosophy,  both 
because  it  is  so  exasperating  and  because  it  is  calculated  to  conceal 
the  real  import  of  the  system.  Our  zeal  to  remove  these  barriers 
to  a  true  appreciation  of  the  system,  and  to  gain  an  unprejudiced 
hearing  for  the  author,  might  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  these 
impedimenta  find  their  partial  explanation  at  least  in  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  Hegel  wrote.  Historically  speaking 
this  transition  from  the  Logic  may  claim  for  itself  some  sort  of 
justification.  Perhaps  it  was  important  for  Hegel's  influence 
that  he  set' forth  his  system  intact;  and  to  do  this  seemed  to 
necessitate  this  transition.  For  if  the  dialectic  had  with  unerring 
precision  led  from  the  poor  and  abstract  category  of  Being 
up  to  the  fullness  of  the  Absolute  Idea,  and  that,  too,  apart  from 
a  direct  consideration  of  Nature  and  of  Spirit,  then  it  was  incum- 
bent upon  the  dialectic  to  lead  in  some  way  to  a  consideration  of 
these  important  aspects  of  experience;  and  how  could  this  be 
more  happily  accomplished  than  by  the  assertion  of  at  least  a 
quasi-dialectical  connection  between  the  Idea  and  these  its  mani- 
festations? This  ground  of  justification  for  Hegel's  procedure 
here  should  not  be  overlooked,  and,  of  course,  should  be  given 
the  weight  that  is  due  it.  But,  after  all,  though  we  may  be  in- 
clined to  excuse,  Hegel  for  his  formality,  we  have  no  special 
I 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  65 

reason  for  being  grateful  to  him  for  it ;  his  system  will  be  appre- 
ciated fully  only  when  we  throw  aside  this  formality  and  penetrate 
to  the  fundamentals  of  the  system.  And  the  fundamentals  of 
the  system  can  best  be  disclosed  when  the  fruitlessness  and  in- 
consistency of  this  attempted  transition  from  the  Logic  are  re- 
vealed. 

So  with  no  great  degree  of  reluctance  we  surrender  the  formal 
arrangement  of  Hegel's  system.  But  we  can  ill  afford  to  miss 
its  spirit  and  the  results  that  follow  from  it.  One  of  the  most 
marked  of  these  results  is  the  position  that  epistemology  is  in  a 
sense  ontology,  that  logic  and  metaphysics  cannot  be  separated 
from  each  other.  This  brings  us  back  to  our  original  question, 
the  intervening  discussion  having  been  necessary  to  clear  the 
way  for  an  answer.  So  we  ask  once  again  concerning  the  real 
meaning  and  justification  of  this  Hegelian  position,  that  a  theory 
of  knowledge  cannot  be  separated  from  a  theory  of  reality.  In 
accordance  with  our  plan  of  discussion,  we  shall  attempt  to 
answer  this  question  by  examining  a  criticism  to  which  the  con- 
tention has  been  subjected. 

The  criticism  which  we  shall  here  examine  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fourth  lecture  of  Professor  Pringle-Pattison's  Hegelianism  and 
Personality.  The  criticism,  we  seem  compelled  to  say,  is  based 
upon  a  misapprehension  of  Hegel's  real  meaning  and  actual  pro- 
cedure.1 The  remaining  part  of  this  chapter  will  first  attempt 
to  justify  this  assertion,  and  then  conclude  with  a  statement  of 
what  Hegel,  in  consistency  with  his  own  principles,  must  have 
meant  by  the  identification  in  question. 

The  criticism  is  based  upon  the  attempted  transition  from  the 
Logic  to  the  Philosophy  of  Nature,  one  phase  of  which  we  have 
already  considered.  Put  in  a  few  words,  the  criticism  seems  to 

1Doubtless  Professor  Pringle-Pattison  would  object  here,  as  he  has  objected 
elsewhere,  that  it  is  time  to  leave  off  trying  to  defend  Hegel  against  adverse  criticism 
by  complaining  that  he  has  been  misunderstood.  And  there  is  ground  for  the 
objection — though  one  is  inclined  to  doubt  whether  it  has  been  the  misfortune  of 
any  other  philosoper  to  be  more  universally  misunderstood.  The  assertion  unsup- 
ported by  evidence,  however,  is  puerile.  My  only  excuse  for  reasserting  it  here  is 
that,  if  this  study  has  not  erred  from  the  beginning,  the  statement  loses  its  dogmatic 
character  and  assumes  for  itself  a  basis  of  justification.  For  it  is  my  purpose  to 
establish  the  assertion  in  the  light  of  the  conclusions  we  have  already  reached,  and 
to  maintain  that  its  justification  rests  upon  the  validity  of  those  conclusions. 


66          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

be  that  in  this  transition  Hegel  deliberately  attempted  to  deduce 
nature  from  the  logical  Idea,  and  that,  by  a  copious  use  of  meta- 
phors, he  deluded  himself  into  thinking  that  he  had  successfully 
bridged  the  gulf  which  separates  formal  thought  from  actual 
existence.  To  quote:  "The  concrete  existence  of  the  categories 
(in  Nature  and  Spirit)  is  to  be  deduced  from  their  essence  or 
thought-nature ;  it  is  to  be  shown  that  they  cannot  not  be.  When 
we  have  mounted  to  the  Absolute  Idea,  it  is  contended,  we  cannot 
help  going  further.  The  nisus  of  thought  itself  projects  thought 
out  of  the  sphere  of  thought  altogether  into  that  of  actual  exist- 
ence. In  fact,  strive  against  the  idea  as  we  may,  it  seems  in- 
dubitable that  there  is  here  once  more  repeated  in  Hegel  the 
extraordinary  but  apparently  fascinating  attempt  to  construct 
the  world  out  of  abstract  thought  or  mere  universals.  The 
whole  form  and  structure  of  the  system,  and  the  express  declara- 
tions of  its  author  at  points  of  critical  importance,  combine  to 
force  this  conviction  upon  us.  The  language  used  can  only  be 
interpreted  to  mean  that  thought  out  of  its  own  abstract  nature 
gives  birth  to  the  reality  of  things."1  All  of  which  amounts  to 
saying  that  Hegel  has  taken  abstract  thought,  ontologized  it, 
and  then  has  turned  about  and  attempted  to  deduce  concrete 
reality  from  this  hypostatized  abstraction. 

It  must  be  admitted  at  once  that  such  an  accusation  is  not 
prima  facie  without  some  justification.  If  we  turn  once  more  to 
the  passages  above  quoted  bearing  on  the  transition  from  the 
Logic,  our  first  inclination  is  to  accept  Professor  Pringle-Pattison's 
interpretation  of  them.  Other  passages,  especially  those  referring 
to  the  absoluteness  and  finality  of  the  system,  seem  to  bear  out 
the  same  contention.  And  when  in  the  Encyclopaedia  we  run 
across  passages  which  baldly  assert  that  everything  is  a  judgment 
or  a  syllogism,  we  wonder  whether  Plato's  conception  of  arche- 
typal Ideas  is  more  removed  from  concrete  experience.  And 
yet  such  an  attempt  to  deduce  nature  from  abstract  thought 
would  be  a  rather  remarkable  undertaking  on  Hegel's  part:  it 
would  be  inconsistent  with  the  entire  spirit  of  his  philosophy, 
the  fundamental  assumption  of  which  is,  as  Haldane  suggests,2 
that  you  cannot  deduce  the  'that.'  Is  it  possible  to  interpret 

1Pp.  117-118.     I  quote  from  the  second  edition. 
Z0p.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  121. 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  67 

these  passages  so  as  to  make  Hegel  consistent  with  the  funda- 
ments of  his  system?  If  so,  it  would  seem  that  such  an  inter- 
pretation should  certainly  be  adopted. 

I  think  it  is  possible  to  make  Hegel  consistent  in  this  regard, 
and  this  I  have  tried  to  do  in  the  preceding  pages  of  this  chapter. 
I  fully  agree  with  Professor  Pringle-Pattison  that  the  attempted 
transition  from  one  to  another  part  of  Encyclopaedia  must  be 
given  up;  and  I  also  agree  that  with  this  transition  we  sur- 
render the  system  as  a  system.  But  I  cannot  agree  with  the 
reasons  which  the  critic  advances  in  support  of  his  conclusions. 
It  was  just  because  his  system  depended  upon  it  that  Hegel  made 
the  resolute  leap,  and  not  for  the  purpose  of  getting  from  abstract 
thought  to  concrete  existence.  The  'ugly  broad  ditch'  between 
thought  and  reality  seems  to  me  only  a  shadow;  and,  unless 
indeed  we  are  to  credit  Hegel  with  momentary  forgetfulness  of 
the  foundation  of  his  system,  I  cannot  think  that  it  was  more  to 
him.  Now  it  would  seem  that  this  interpretation,  namely,  that 
the  transition  from  the  Logic  was  attempted  for  purely  schematic 
purposes,  has  the  advantage  over  such  an  interpretation  as  Pro- 
fessor Pringle-Pattison 's,  which  makes  of  the  transition  an  at- 
tempt to  deduce  existential  reality  from  abstract  universals ;  and 
the  advantage  of  the  former  interpretation  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  does  make  Hegel  consistent  with  the  basic  principles  of  his 
theory.  We  may  venture  to  put  the  matter  in  the  form  of  a 
disjunction.  Either  Hegel  tried  to  deduce  nature  from  the  logical 
categories  or  he  did  not.  If  he  did  attempt  it,  then  he  contra- 
dicts himself;  for  such  an  attempt  would  presuppose  that  the 
logical  categories  are  merely  abstract  thoughts  existing  in  the 
heads  of  individuals  and  possessing  no  vital  significance  in  relation 
to  the  essence  of  concrete  objects.  But  this  is  the  very  concep- 
tion of  thought  which  we  have  seen  Hegel  object  to  in  the  systems 
of  his  predecessors  and  in  contradistinction  to  which  he  empha- 
sizes his  own  doctrine.  And  that  doctrine  is  that  thought  has 
transcended  the  opposition  between  itself  and  its  object  and  is 
really  the  expression  of  the  essence  of  the  object.  "Pure  science 
presupposes  liberation  from  the  opposition  of  consciousness.  It 
contains  thought  in  so  far  as  it  is  just  as  much  the  object  in  itself, 
or  the  object  in  itself  in  so  far  as  it  is  just  as  much  pure  thought"1 

Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  p.  33- 


68          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  Hegel  did  not  attempt  to  deduce  nature 
from  thought,  it  would  seem  that  his  statements  about  a  transi- 
tion from  the  Logic  must  be  explained  away.  Now  the  latter 
horn  of  this  dilemma  is  comparatively  easily  disposed  of,  as  has 
already  been  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  part  of  the  present 
chapter;  the  so-called  transition  is  only  a  change  in  point  of  view, 
the  author's  insistence  upon  the  necessity  of  the  transition  being 
made  for  the  sake  of  his  system.  But  if  we  follow  Professor 
Pringle-Pattison  in  accepting  the  former,  the  most  significant 
aspect  of  Hegel's  philosophy  will,  to  say  the  least,  become  ques- 
tionable and  he  himself  will  stand  accused  of  the  most  glaring 
of  inconsistencies.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt,  then,  of  the 
conclusion  to  be  reached  here. 

But  leaving  aside  speculation  as  to  what  may  or  may  not  have 
been  the  immediate  purpose  of  Hegel  in  this  transition,  let  us  try 
to  see  what  is  logically  involved  in  it.  Whether  or  not  Hegel 
has  here  made  a  deliberate  attempt  to  deduce  nature  from  thought, 
such  an  attempt  is  certainly  not  logically  imposed  upon  him. 

This  contention  is  based  upon  what  has  already  been  said  about 
the  presupposition  of  the  Encyclopedia.  In  the  Encyclopedia 
we  are  dealing  with  one  whole,  namely,  reality:  the  three  parts 
of  the  Encyclopedia  represent  different  points  of  view  from  which 
this  totality  is  observed.  This  conclusion  follows  necessarily, 
if  our  view  concerning  the  significance  of  the  Phenomenology 
in  the  system  be  correct.  For  the  ver,y  outcome  of  the  Phenomen- 
ology, we  remember,  has  been  the  disclosure  of  the  impossibility 
of  dividing  reality  into  water-tight  compartments  which  are  so 
separated  from  each  other  that  each  may  be  dealt  with  entirely 
independently  of  the  others.  Reality,  this  discussion  has  taught 
us,  is  rather  one  indissoluble  whole  whose  parts  can  be  separated 
from  each  ofher  only  by  abstraction.  The  Encyclopedia,  there- 
fore, presupposing  as  it  unquestionably  does  the  result  of  the 
Phenomenology,  must  have  for  its  object  the  one  reality,  and  its 
several  parts  must  be  simply  different  points  of  view  from  which 
this  unitary  reality  is  observed  and  investigated.  Now  as  a 
corollary  of  this,  it  follows  that  the  transition  from  the  Logic  is 
as  Kuno  Fischer  suggests,1  logically  nothing  more  than  a  change 
in  point  of  view.  If  the  Encyclopedia  presents  reality  to  us  from 

!Cf.  op.  cit.,  pp.  573-576. 


ONTOLOGY  AND   EPISTEMOLOGY.  69 

three  different  standpoints  each  of  which  involves  the  others, 
—and  let  us  not  forget  that  this  is  the  lesson  of  the  Phenomen- 
ology— then  a  transition  within  the  Encyclopedia  cannot  be 
anything  but  a  change  in  point  of  view.  So  all  that  Hegel 
really  was  called  upon  to  do  in  order  to  get  from  the  Logic  to  the 
Philosophy  of  Nature  was  simply  to  announce  that  he  intended 
to  investigate  his  problems  from  a  new  viewpoint:  the  transition, 
if  one  will  call  it  so,  had  already  been  made  in  the  Phenomenology 
of  Spirit  as  we  have  abundantly  seen. 

Now  it  would  seem  that  the  accusation  that  Hegel  seriously 
tried  to  deduce  existence  from  thought  when  he  made  the  transi- 
tion from  the  Logic  to  the  Philosophy  of  Nature  fails  to  give  the 
above  considerations  the  weight  that  is  due  them.  Unless  one 
drops  them  out  of  mind  entirely,  it  is  difficult,  not  to  say  impos- 
sible, to  catch  the  significance  of  the  following  as  a  criticism  of 
Hegel :  "Most  assuredly  the  Notion  contains  the  category  of  Being; 
so  does  the  Ego,  that  is  to  say,  the  idea  of  the  ego,  and  the  Idea 
of  God,  both  of  which  are  simply  the  Notion  under  another  name. 
.  .  .  But  when  we  ask  for  real  bread,  why  put  us  off  with  a 
logical  stone  like  this?  It  is  not  the  category  'Being/  of  which 
we  are  in  quest,  but  that  reality  of  which  all  categories  are  only 
descriptions,  and  which  itself  can  only  be  experienced,  immedi- 
ately known  or  lived.  To  such  reality  or  factual  existence  there 
is  no  logical  bridge;  and  thoughts  or  categories  have  meaning 
only  if  we  assume,  as  somehow  given,  a  real  world  to  which  they 
refer."1  Surely  such  a  criticism  could  have  been  written  only 
in  forgetfulness  of  what  Hegel  has  said  about  the  presupposition 
of  the  Logic  and  the  mediated  aspect  of  the  category  of  Being. 
Being  is,  indeed,  a  logical  category;  but  it  is  more  than  a  mere 
abstract  category,  a  blank  universal,  that  has  only  a  psychological 
existence  in  the  consciousness  of  the  thinker  who  happens  to 
possess  it.  It  is  a  concrete  thought  that  expresses  one  very 
general,  but  withal  very  essential,  characteristic  of  that  which 
really  is.  In  Hegel's  usage,  Being,  or  any  other  category  of 
thought,  is  not  a  mere  idea  or  concept;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a 
universal  which  ipso  facto  includes  within  its  very  nature  the 
particularity  of  existence.2 

lHegelianism  and  Personality,  pp.  126—127. 

2It  should  be  noted  that  Hegel's  frequent  'snort  of  contempt'  is  reserved  exclu- 


70          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

And  this  brings  us  face  to  face  with  what  seems  to  be  the  funda- 
mental error  in  Professor  Pringle-Pattison's  charge.  I  refer  to 
his  neglect  of  the  meaning  which  Hegel  attaches  to  the  Notion. 
This  is  the  bed-rock  upon  which  Hegel  bases  his  contention  that 
logic  and  ontology  are  essentially  one.  It  is  only  the  Notion 
that  "sinks  itself  in  the  facts";  it  is  only  the  Notion  that  is  "ac- 
credited able  to  express  the  essential  reality  of  things";  and 
only  the  Notion  is  the  subject-matter  of  the  science  of  logic. 
The  Notion,  thus,  is  the  tie  that  binds  epistemology  and  meta- 
physics together.  For  if  thought  comprehends  reality  and  is 
capable  of  expressing  it,  if  there  is  no  'residuum'  which  lies  out- 
side of  thought  and  which  in  its  nature  is  inexpressible  in  terms 
of  thought,  then  the  science  of  thought  is  in  a  very  important 
sense  the  science  of  things.  Now  just  this  conclusion  the  critic 
objects  to;  and  his  objection  seems  to  rest  upon  a  misinterpreta- 
tion of  the  premise. 

Let  us  notice  some  of  Professor  Pringle-Pattison's  statements. 
After  quoting  several  passages  from  Hegel  to  the  effect  that 
Nature  is  the  logical  Idea  in  its  otherness,  is  the  Spirit  in  alienation 
from  itself,  and  so  forth,  he  continues:  "Now  I  maintain  that  the 
whole  problem  of  reality  as  such  is  wrapped  up  in  these  meta- 
phorical phrases — otherness,  petrifaction,  materiature,  concre- 
tion— and  that  by  evading  the  question,  Hegel  virtually  declines 
to  take  account  of  anything  but  logical  abstractions.  He  offers 
us,  in  a  word,  a  logic  in  place  of  a  metaphysic;  and  it  may  be 
unhesitatingly  asserted  that  such  a  proposal,  if  taken  literally, 
is  not  only  untenable,  it  is  absurd."  Nothing,  we  are  further 
informed,  is  in  very  truth  a  logical  category.  "A  living  dog  is 
better  than  a  dead  lion,  and  even  an  atom  is  more  than  a  cate- 
gory. It  at  least  exists  as  a  reality,  whereas  a  category  is  an 
abstract  ghost,  which  may  have  a  meaning  for  intelligent  beings, 
but  which,  divorced  from  such  real  beings  and  their  experience, 
is  the  very  type  of  a  non-ens."  A  little  later  he  says:  "Existence 
is  one  thing,  knowledge  is  another.  But  the  logical  bias  of  the 
Hegelian  philosophy  tends  to  make  this  essential  distinction  dis- 
appear, and  to  reduce  things  to  mere  types  or  'concretions'  of 
abstract  formulae."  "The  result  of  Hegel's  procedure  would 

sively  for  the  category  of  Being  which  presumes  to  exhaust  the  nature  of  ultimate 
reality. 


ONTOLOGY  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY.  71 

really  be  to  sweep  'existential  reality'  off  the  board  altogether, 
under  the  persuasion,  apparently,  that  a  full  statement  of  all 
the  thought-relations  that  constitute  our  knowledge  of  the  thing 
is  equivalent  to  the  existent  thing  itself.  On  the  contrary,  it 
may  be  confidently  asserted  that  there  is  no  more  identity  of 
Knowing  and  Being  with  an  infinity  of  such  relations  than  there 
was  with  one."1 

If  I  understand  the  import  of  these  passages — and  their  mean- 
ing seems  unmistakable — there  is  involved  in  them  an  assumption 
which  I  dare  think  is  unwarranted.  The  assumption  is  that 
Hegel  has  actually  attempted  to  reduce  sensuous  experience  to 
the  universals  of  formal  thought,  and  has  tried  to  make  such 
universals  really  be  the  existent  things.  If  it  be  true  that  Hegel 
has  attempted  this,  then  it  should  be  admitted  without  argument 
that  he  has  attempted  that  which  is  both  impossible  and  absurd. 
It  may,  perhaps,  be  rather  difficult  to  say  just  in  what  respect 
an  atom  is  more  than  a  category,  just  what  other  reality  it  pos- 
sesses besides  its  meaning  for  intelligent  beings;  but  there  can 
not  be  any  question  that  a  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead 
lion — an  object  is  indisputably  more  than  a  mere  meeting-point 
of  abstract  relations:  But  does  Hegel  deny  this?  Is  it  quite 
fair  to  him  to  assert  that  the  logical  bias  of  his  philosophy  is 
"to  reduce  things  to  mere  types  or  'concretions'  of  abstract  form- 
ulae"? Does  he  really  try  to  force  the  particularity  of  existence 
into  the  abstract  universality  of  bare  cognition?  I  have  already 
maintained  that  such  an  assumption  is  groundless  and  even 
contrary  to  the  real  spirit  of  Hegel's  system;  and  the  preceding 
chapters  attempt  to  set  forth  the  reasons  upon  which  such  a 
contention  rests.  If  I  have  there  failed  to  accomplish  this,  it 
would  hardly  be  worth  while  for  me  to  undertake  it  here.  Suffice 
it  to  reiterate  that,  when  Hegel  insists  that  knowledge  or  thought 
and  reality  are  conterminous,  he  is  simply  upholding  the  theory 
that  experience  and  reality  are  one:  he  means  by  thought,  the 
Notion,  not  abstract  and  formal  cognition,  but  organized  ex- 
perience. If  such  a  criticism  as  the  one  with  which  we  are  here 
dealing  is  to  be  established,  it  must  first  be  shown  that  Hegel 
does  not  hold  such  a  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  thought  as  has 

Tor  the  quotations  here  given,  see  op.  cit.,  pp.  128-134. 


72  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

here  been  attributed  to  him ;  and  this  must  be  shown  regardless 
of  innumerable  utterances  to  the  contrary,  and  in  spite  of  the 
pages  of  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit. 

In  the  last  analysis,  one  seems  safe  in  saying,  the  real  difference 
between  Hegel  and  his  critic  turns  upon  the  question  whether 
thought  is  an  adequate  expression  of  the  real.  Both  have  the 
same  conception  of  reality,  namely,  that  it  consists  in  the  indi- 
vidual; and  both  agree  as  to  the  true  definition  of  the  individual, 
namely,  that  it  is  identity  in  difference.1  But  in  answer  to  the 
question  whether  thought  is  capable  of  expressing  the  individual, 
author  and  critic  part  company.  The  former,  as  we  have  seen, 
answers  in  the  affirmative;  while  the  latter,  though  he  shows  a 
puzzling  inconsistency,  finally  gives  a  negative  answer.2  So  we 

lFor  justification  of  this  asserion  concerning  Hegel,  I  refer  the  reader  to  the 
following  chapter  of  this  study.  There  can  be  no  question  concerning  Professor 
Pringle-Pattison's  position.  In  the  Scottish  Philosophy  (p.  170)  he  very  emphatic- 
ally tells  us  that  "the  particular  as  particular — the  mere  self-identical  unqualified 
particular — nowhere  exists;  it  is  the  abstraction  of  a  logic  not  wholly  clear  about  its 
own  procedure.  And  the  thing-in-itself  is  simply  the  fallacy  of  the  mere  particular 
in  another  form.  The  mere  particular  and  the  mere  universal  are  alike  abstractions 
of  the  mind;  what  exists  is  the  individual."  And  when  we  inquire  further  as  to 
what  we  are  to  understand  by  the  individual,  we  are  informed  that  it  is  "a  particular 
that  is  also  universal,  or,  from  the  other  side,  it  is  a  universal — a  set  of  universals 
— particularized."  Or,  in  other  words,  it  is  "identity  through  difference,"  "dif- 
ference subsumed  into  identity."  I  shall  point  out  later  that  this  is  exactly  Hegel's 
conception  of  the  real,  namely,  a  universal  particularized,  or,  as  he  himself  puts  it 
(Enc.,  §  167),  "a  universal  which  is  individualized."  As  regards  the  ultimate 
nature  of  the  system  of  reality,  Hegel  and  his  critic  may  disagree;  but  they  are  in 
full  accord  that  that  which  is  real  can  be  neither  an  abstract  particular  nor  a  blank 
universal,  but  must  be  a  particularized  universal. 

2  A  word  concerning  Professor  Pringle-Pattison's  inconsistency  on  this  point 
may  not  be  amiss.  In  From  Kant  to  Hegel,  by  way  of  criticism  of  Fichte's  implicit 
assumption  that  the  object  is  something  more  than  its  manifestations,  we  read: 
"The  noumenon  is  always  a  fuller  knowledge  as  yet  unreached  by  us,  and  so  each 
category  has  its  own  validity  and  function.  But  it  is  not  an  unattainable  reality, 
and  to  exalt  this  useful  distinction  of  thought  into  a  barrier  which  thought  is  unable 
to  surmount  is  simply  to  fall  down  and  worship  pur  own  abstractions.  A  philosophy 
which  remains  entangled  in  this  opposition  must  inevitably  end  in  the  paradox  that 
the  real  is  what  cannot  be  known"  (pp.  46-47).  A  passage  of  similar  import  occurs 
in  the  Scottish  Philosophy,  pp.  173-174.  One  is  at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  reconcile 
these  passages  with  the  one  in  Hegelianism  and  Personality  (pp.  137-138),  in  which 
the  opinions  of  Trendelenburg  and  Mr.  Bradley,  to  the  effect  that  the  real  is  in- 
accessible by  way  of  ideas,  are  quoted  with  approval.  Perhaps  the  inconsistency 
here  is  due  to  a  change  of  view  on  the  part  of  the  author.  I  have  presumed  to 
call  attention  to  it,  because  it  concerns  such  a  vital  epistemological  problem. 


ONTOLOGY  AND   EPISTEMOLOGY.  73 

face  the  question,  Is  thought  adequate  to  express  the  real  as  thus 
defined?  Or  is  it  the  very  nature  of  the  individual  to  transcend 
thought? 

In  order  to  answer  this  question  we  must  first  come  to  some 
understanding  concerning  the  real  nature  of  thought.  And  two 
conceptions  of  its  essential  nature  are  possible.  One  doctrine 
of  thought  is  that  which  Mr.  McTaggart  attributes  to  Hegel  and 
which  has  been  defined  by  Lotze  thus:  "Thought  is  everywhere 
but  a  mediating  activity  moving  hither  and  thither,  bringing  into 
connection  the  original  intuitions  of  external  and  internal  per- 
ception, which  are  predetermined  by  fundamental  ideas  and  laws 
the  origin  of  which  cannot  be  shown;  it  develops  special  and 
properly  logical  forms,  peculiar  to  itself,  only  in  the  effort  to 
apply  the  idea  of  truth  (which  it  finds  in  us)  to  the  scattered 
multiplicity  of  perceptions,  and  of  the  consequences  developed 
from  them."1  According  to  this  conception  of  thought,  thought 
is  a  mediating  activity  among  other  mental  processes  which  bear 
to  it  an  external  relation.  The  other  possible  conception  of 
thought  is  that  which  has  been  attributed  to  Hegel  in  the  present 
study,  the  nature  of  which  Hegel  expresses  thus:  "If  we  identify 
the  Idea  with  thought,  thought  must  not  be  taken  in  the  sense 
of  a  method  or  form,  but  in  the  sense  of  the  self-developing  total- 
ity of  its  laws  and  peculiar  terms.  These  laws  are  the  work  of 
thought  itself,  and  not  a  fact  which  it  finds  and  must  submit  to."2 
Or  thus:  "In  all  human  perception  thought  is  present;  so  too 
thought  is  the  universal  in  all  the  acts  of  conception  and  recollec- 
tion; in  short,  in  every  mental  activity,  in  willing,  wishing,  and 
the  like.  All  these  faculties  are  only  further  specializations  of 
thought.  When  it  is  presented  in  this  light,  thought  has  a  dif- 
ferent part  to  play  from  what  it  has  if  we  speak  of  a  faculty  of 
thought,  one  among  a  crowd  of  other  faculties,  such  as  perception, 
conception,  and  will,  with  which  it  stands  on  the  same  level."3 

Now  whichever  of  these  doctrines  of  thought  we  accept  as  true 
to  the  facts  of  experience,  our  answer  to  the  above  question  is 

1Microcosmos,  Book  VIII,  Chapter  I,  §  8.  The  quotation  is  from  the  translation 
of  the  fourth  edition. 

zEnc.,  §  19.     See  the  lecture-note  also. 

sEnc.,  §  24,  lecture-note  (i).  The  doctrine  of  thought  upheld  by  Hegel  is  dis- 
cussed throughout  this  entire  chapter  on  the  'Preliminary  Notion.' 


74          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

fixed.  If,  on  the  one  hand,  Lotze's  account  be  the  true  descrip- 
tion of  actual  concrete  thought,  then  it  is  certain  beyond  any 
dispute  that  Being  can  not  be  "resolved  into  it  without  leaving 
any  residuum."  Thought  which  is  merely  a  process  of  mediation 
among  brute  facts  of  experience  cannot  possibly  be  more  than  a 
formal  method  of  dealing  with  data  given  independently  of  it; 
and  these  data  would  certainly  have  to  be  accounted  a  part  of 
Being.  Such  thought  might  prove  a  valuable  instrument  for 
dealing  with  reality — though  I  am  not  sure  that  I  can  see  why 
it  should,  or,  indeed,  how  it  could,  do  so — but  it  could  at  most 
only  compare  and  relate  phenomena:  reality  would  be,  and  would 
forever  remain,  beyond  it.  But,  if,  on  the  other  hand,  Hegel's 
account  of  thought  is  the  true  one,  then  it  would  seem  that  we 
might  as  dogmatically  assert  that  thought  does  comprehend  and 
exhaust  the  real.  Either  this,  or  we  commit  ourselves  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  thing-in-itself  which  Kant  has  taught  us,  by  his 
failure  to  make  it  comprehensible,  to  fear.  For  if  thought  is  con- 
terminous only  with  experience,  then  it  is  also  conterminous  with 
the  real;  otherwise,  of  course,  reality  would  be  trans-experiential. 
Just  how,  in  Hegel's  opinion,  such  thought  is  capable  of  expressing 
the  individuality  of  reality,  I  have  tried  to  indicate  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter  on  the  process  of  thought:  his  doctrine  is  that 
thought  is  adequate  to  express  the  individual,  because  its  cate- 
gories are  just  such  self -particularizing  universals — universals 
obtained,  not  by  abstraction  from  the  particulars,  but  by  the 
interpretation  of  them. 

It  seems  to  me  that,  in  the  above  criticism  of  Hegel,  Professor 
Pringle-Pattison  confuses  these  two  doctrines  of  thought,  or 
rather,  that  he  overlooks  Hegel's  own  doctrine  and  tacitly  at- 
tributes to  him  that  of  Lotze,  and  so  criticizes  him  for  that  of 
which  he  is  not  guilty.  For  if  we  take  Hegel's  more  concrete 
doctrine  of  the  nature  of  thought  into  account,  the  criticism 
misses  the  mark.  Perhaps  I  have  dwelt  long  enough  on  this 
point;  but  it  is  a  very  vital  one  in  connection  with  Hegel's 
system.  I  submit  that  it  is  only  this  confusion  which  gives 
Professor  Pringle-Pattison's  criticism  significance,  and  that  the 
criticism  falls  of  its  own  accord  when  the  confusion  is  cleared 
away. 


ONTOLOGY  AND   E PIS TEMO LOGY.  75 

Just  here  emerges  a  consideration  which  we  may  pause  to 
emphasize  before  we  pass  on  to  the  concluding  remarks  of  this 
chapter.  And  that  consideration  is  that  the  point  at  which  to 
attack  Hegel's  identification  of  logic  and  metaphysics  is  his  doc- 
trine concerning  the  nature  of  that  thought  which  is  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  science  of  logic.  With  the  validity  of  this  doctrine 
stands  or  falls  his  contention  that  epistemology  and  ontology 
are  essentially  one.  For  if  the  categories  express  the  nature  of 
ultimate  reality,  then  the  science  of  the  categories,  namely,  logic, 
is  the  science  of  the  real.  And  in  order  to  prove  that  Hegel  has 
no  right  to  claim  that  thought  expresses  fully  the  real,  one  must 
show  that  his  doctrine  of  thought  is  false.  And  this,  it  would 
seem,  would  involve  a  careful  investigation  of  experience,  since 
Hegel  claims  to  have  rooted  his  doctrine  in  experience  through 
the  procedure  of  the  Phenomenology.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  such 
an  enterprise  has  been  undertaken  by  none  of  Hegel's  critics.1 

The  answer  to  the  question  as  to  what  Hegel  really  did  mean 
by  his  assertion  that  logic  and  metaphysics  are  fundamentally 
one  is  involved  in  what  has  already  been  said.  It  remains  only 
to  set  it  forth  and  to  emphasize  it. 

In  the  first  place,  it  seems  that  we  are  forced  to  say  that  Hegel 
does  not  mean  to  reduce  thought  and  being  to  an  abstract  iden- 
tity. We  have  already  insisted  upon  this  point,  but  it  will  be 
well  to  emphasize  it  again  since  it  is  so  generally  taken  for 
granted  that  the  contrary  is  true.  Critics  generally  seem  to 
think  that,  when  Hegel  asserts  that  thought  exhausts  reality,  he 
is  asserting  that  thought  about  an  object  actually  is  the  object 
itself  and  that  experience  is  no  richer  than  the  poverty  of  abstract 
cognition.  Identity  of  thought  and  being  means  for  them  un- 
differentiated  identity;  upon  their  interpretation  the  particular 
loses  itself  in  the  universal,  becomes  vaporized,  as  it  were,  into 
a  mere  meeting-point  of  abstract  relations.  But  such  abstract 

xThe  writer  has  no  desire  to  defend  the  letter  of  Hegel's  system;  the  preceding 
discussion  simply  aims  to  be  faithful  to  the  spirit  of  his  system.  It  is  true  that  the 
time  has  come  to  leave  off  trying  to  defend  Hegel  by  complaining  that  he  has  been 
misunderstood.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  time  has  come  when  the  critics  of  Hegel's 
doctrines  should  penetrate  beneath  the  formality  of  his  philosophy  and  bring  to 
the  surface  its  basic  principles.  Were  this  done,  there  would  be  much  less  useless 
and  valueless  criticism  than  one  finds  at  present.  In  many  instances  criticisms 
stand  self- refuted,  if  only  their  presuppositions  are  disclosed. 


76          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

identity  between  thought  and  its  object  Hegel  simply  could  not 
teach  and  at  the  same  time  remain  true  to  his  system :  it  is  in  direct 
contradiction  of  his  fundamental  presuppositions,  indeed  it  con- 
tradicts the  very  thesis  he  was  trying  to  establish.1  He  began 
by  assuming  a  duality  within  and  basic  to  experience,  namely, 
the  subject-object  relation;  and  certainly  he  did  not  wish  to 
destroy  the  very  foundation  on  which  he  was  building.  He  never 
denied  the  existence  of  the  concrete  object,  nor  did  he  make  any 
attempt  to  reduce  the  object  to  blank  universality.  He  did 
indeed  reduce  the  object  to  terms  of  the  subject;  he  urged  that 
ultimate  reality  must  be  construed  as  Subject  and  not  as  Sub- 
stance. But  he  did  not  destroy  the  duality  within  experience. 
The  object  was  never  annihilated  as  an  object,  only  explained; 
its  alienation  disappeared,  but  its  self-identity  was  never  lost. 
This  idea  that  Hegel  tried  to  reduce  factual  existence  to  abstract 
relations  should  be  dismissed  from  our  minds  once  for  all,  unless 
we  prefer  to  believe  that  he  forgot  or  set  about  to  contradict  the 
very  doctrine  which  he  was  endeavoring  to  establish.  Whatever 
one  may  see  in  the  leap  from  the  Logic  to  the  Philosophy  of  Nature, 
one  must  grant  that  Hegel  could  not  have  seriously  entertained 
the  idea  that  abstract  cognition  and  existential  reality  are  identi- 
cal; the  inconsistency  involved  is  too  patent.2 

In  the  second  place,  what  Hegel  really  does  mean  by  his  posi- 
tion that  logic  and  metaphysic  coincide  seems  to  be  this,  namely, 
the  assertion  of  the  complete  intelligibility  or  mediated  character 
of  reality.  Instead  of  being  merely  subjective  ideas,  the  cate- 
gories of  the  Logic  are  principles  of  ultimate  reality;  and  ultimate 
reality  is  simply  what  these  principles  show  it  to  be.  It  is  only 
by  these  instruments  that  experience  gets  its  organization;  and 
organized  experience  and  reality  coincide.  The  science  of  the 
categories  is,  thus,  the  science  of  the  real;  but  being  is  not  de- 
duced, it  is  only  thoroughly  rationalized  and  explained.  Of 
course,  we  must  remember  that  these  categories  are  not  merely 

1See  in  this  connection  Hegel's  own  words  quoted  above  (Chapter  I)  from  the 
Encyclopedia,  section  573.  There  Hegel  states  as  plainly  as  possible  that  there  is 
a  marked  difference  between  abstract  identity  and  his  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the 
Notion.  And  upon  this  difference  he  rests  his  case. 

2Abstractness  of  thought  and  the  attempt  to  deduce  existence  from  it  were 
early  repulsive  to  Hegel.  Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  I,  pp.  119  ff.;  also  Kuno  Fischer,  op.  cit., 
pp.  267-268. 


ONTOLOGY  AND   EPISTEMOLOGY.  77 

conceptions  of  the  Understanding,  as  Hegel  calls  it,  or  of  what 
we  call  cognition:  the  categories  of  feeling  and  will  are  just  as 
important  as  the  categories  of  cognition.  And  we  must  also 
remember  that  the  categories  of  the  Reason  are  not  merely 
universals  bearing  an  external  and  mechanical  relation  to  the 
particulars;  they  are  universals  which  exist  only  in  and  through 
the  particulars  subsumed  under  them,  and  in  which  the  particu- 
lars find  their  only  reality.1  Such  an  identification  of  logic  and 
ontology,  Hegel  maintains,  is  logically  involved  in  the  system  of 
Kant:  the  reason  why  Kant  failed  to  realize  the  fact  was  that 
he  gave  his  categories  an  'essentially  subjective  significance.'2 
That  is  to  say,  had  Kant  only  realized  that  the  realm  of  possible 
experience  is  the  real  and  only  real,  then  the  categories,  which  he 
recognized  as  principles  of  the  deepest  import  in  experience, 
would  have  been  regarded  as  principles  of  reality,  would  have  at- 
tained to  truly  objective  significance;  and  so  the  science  of  these 
principles  would  have  become  the  science  of  the  real,  the  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason  would  have  been  a  metaphysic  as  well  as  a  treatise 
on  epistemology.  Now  Hegel  argues  that  thought  must  be  gen- 
uinely objective,  else  we  have  on  our  hands  a  dualism  which  can- 
not be  transcended.  And  thought  being  really  objective,  logic 
is  inevitably  metaphysic. 

This  leads  us  in  conclusion  to  remark,  in  anticipation  of  a 
discussion  that  will  follow  in  the  next  chapter,  that  doubtless 
Hegel  would  hardly  find  free  from  difficulties  the  epistemology  of 
those  who  are  inclined  to  criticize  him  for  making  logic  and 
metaphysics  coincident.  He  might  ask  concerning  the  logical 
consequences  of  their  position;  and  more  than  likely  he  would 
intimate  that  the  inevitable  answer  is  the  Ding-an-sich  of  the 
Kantian  philosophy.  For  what  reality  is  it  that  lies  beyond 
thought,  but  a  reality  that  is  unknowable  in  terms  of  thought? 
And  how  can  that  reality  which  is  unknowable  in  terms  of  thought 
be  known  at  all?  And  what  significance  can  be  attached  to  an 
unknowable  reality?  Is  it  logically  possible  to  separate  knowl- 
edge and  reality?  Hegel  would  urge  that  knowledge,  which  is 
incapable  of  expressing  the  nature  of  the  ultimately  real,  is 
impotent.  "Only  in  so  far  as  reflection  has  reference  to  the 

'Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  VII,  i,  pp.  16-17.         *Werke,  Bd.  Ill,  p.  35. 


78          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

Absolute  is  it  Reason,  and  its  activity  that  of  real  knowledge."1 
He  would  furthermore  insist  that  what  exists  apart  from  knowl- 
edge is  an  abstraction.  "The  object  as  it  is  without  thought  and 
the  Notion  is  a  mere  idea,  a  name :  the  forms  of  thought  and  the 
Notion  make  of  it  what  it  is."2  To  such  strictures  it  would 
seem  that  the  critics  could  reply  only  by  admitting  that  the  real 
does  somehow  fall  within  the  system  of  knowledge;  for,  ulti- 
mately, there  can  be  no  bits  or  nuclei  of  reality  that  remain 
opaque  to  thought.  As  Professor  Bosanquet  has  remarked:  "If 
the  object-matter  of  reality  lay  genuinely  outside  the  system  of 
thought,  not  only  our  analysis,  but  thought  itself,  would  be 
unable  to  lay  hold  of  reality."3  And  such  an  empty  conception 
of  thought  and  such  a  hopeless  conception  of  reality  would  com- 
bine to  land  us  in  a  rather  barren  and  forlorn  subjectivism. 

The  conclusions  of  our  discussion  are  as  follows.  Hegel  does 
argue  that  logic  and  metaphysic  coincide.  But  the  coincidence 
is  not  an  abstract  identity.  Against  such  a  conclusion  the  lesson 
of  the  Phenomenology  warns  us.  The  coincidence  between  the 
two  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  thought,  which  is  the  subject 
matter  of  logic,  is  the  principle  of  organization  of  reality  itself; 
logic,  thus,  is  necessarily  a  science  of  reality.  The  attempted 
transition  from  the  Logic  to  the  other  parts  of  the  Encyclopedia 
must  be  explained  as  the  result  of  Hegel's  anxiety  to  keep  his 
system  intact.  It  cannot  be  construed  as  an  attempt  on  Hegel's 
part  to  deduce  factual  existence  from  one  aspect  of  conscious 
experience ;  for  such  an  attempt  would  have  contradicted 
the  doctrine  which  Hegel  most  persistently  presupposes,  the 
doctrine,  namely,  that  thought  is  concrete,  not  abstract. 

Werke,  Bd.  I,  p.  178.  *Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  329. 

3Logic,  Vol.  I,  pp.  2-3. 


PART  II. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  of  this  study  we  have  been  concerned 
exclusively  with  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  thought.  We 
have  learned  that,  according  to  his  doctrine,  thought  is  co-ex- 
tensive with  experience  and  consequently  with  reality  itself: 
it  has  no  datum  opposed  to  and  independent  of  it.1  Thus  an 
investigation  of  the  nature  of  thought  was  necessary  before 
we  could  arrive  at  a  just  appreciation  of  Hegel's  teaching  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  the  ultimately  real.  Having  now  completed 
this  investigation  and  having  learned  what  Hegel  has  to  say 
concerning  the  thought-process,  we  turn  to  the  other  aspect 
of  our  general  problem  and  inquire  about  the  details  of  Hegel's 
doctrine  of  reality. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  Hegel  insists  that  reality  is  the  result 
of  a  process  of  mediation;  it  is  not  a  first  principle,  but  a  last 
result.  This  is  a  contention  upon  which  Hegel  is  constantly 
insisting.  "If  knowledge  is  to  grasp  the  truth,"  he  tells  us,  "it 
must  not  remain  at  the  standpoint  of  the  immediately  given 
and  its  determinations.  On  the  contrary,  it  must  penetrate 
this  immediate  being,  assuming  that  behind  it  there  is  something 
other  than  itself,  which  hidden  somewhat  constitues  its  truth."2 
"Every  immediate  unity  is  only  abstract  potential  truth,  not 
real  truth."3  "Concerning  the  Absolute,  it  is  to  be  said  that  it  is 
first  as  a  result  what  it  is  in  truth."4  The  real  is  not  to  be  found 
in  sense-perception :  it  is  only  the  result  of  the  process  of  thought.5 
This  emphasis  of  the  mediated  aspect  of  reality  is  one  of  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  and  the  author 
never  tires  of  reminding  us  of  it.6  The  ultimately  real  is  not 

JIn  the  present  chapter  I  use  the  terms  experience  and  reality  interchangeably. 
This,  I  think,  is  true  to  the  spirit  of  Hegel's  system. 

*Werke,  Bd.  IV,  p.  3.  *Werke,  Bd.  VII,  i,  p.  15. 

*Werke,  Bd.  II,  p.  15.  5Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  20. 

6Cf.  Enc.,  §§  22,  112,  etc.;  also  the  preface  to  the  Phenomenology. 

79 


80  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

shot  out  of  a  pistol  at  us;  truth  is  not  given,  as  it  were,  a  coin 
from  the  mint.  On  the  contrary,  the  real  must  be  denned,  and 
its  definition  comes  only  with  developing  experience  and  the 
growth  of  knowledge.  It  is  only  the  labors  of  thought  that  can 
lead  us  to  the  land  of  reality. 

This  being  true,  it  follows  at  once  that  the  form  of  universality 
is,  as  Hegel  views  the  matter,  an  essential  aspect  of  the  real. 
For,  on  this  hypothesis,  reality  lies  exclusively  within  the  domain 
of  thought;  and  thinking  ipso  facto  necessitates  the  form  of 
universality.1  This  implication  of  his  system  Hegel  does  not 
overlook.  In  the  Natur  philosophic,  for  example,  he  urges  that 
the  universal  aspect  of  objects  is  not  to  be  considered  as  some- 
thing foreign  to  them,  a  form  which  belongs  to  them  only  when 
they  happen  to  be  thought  about;  rather,  the  universal  is  ab- 
solutely essential  to  their  reality,  it  is  the  noumenon,  as  it  were, 
behind  the  transitory  and  fleeting  phenomenon.2  Reason,  he 
tells  us  elsewhere,  "is  the  certitude  that  its  determinations  are  just 
as  much  objective,  i.  e.,  determinations  of  the  essence  of  things, 
as  they  are  subjective  thoughts/'3  Again,  in  opposition  to  the 
atomistic  view  of  Locke  and  the  empiricists  to  the  effect  that  the 
universal  does  not  in  reality  belong  to  objects,  Hegel  asserts: 
"To  say  .  .  .  that  the  universal  is  not  the  essential  reality  of 
nature  ...  is  tantamount  to  saying  that  we  do  not  know  real 
existence."4  And  an  unknowable  reality  is,  for  Hegel,  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms.  Reality,  then,  does  assume  the  form  of 
universality;  this  is  essential  to  its  very  being. 

From  this  we  may  pass  at  once  to  the  conclusion  that  the  real, 
as  Hegel  conceives  of  it,  cannot  be  the  abstract  particular.  After 
what  has  just  been  said  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  argue  this  point 
further.  Hegel  would  unhesitatingly  assert  that  the  particular, 
qua  particular,  is  never  found  in  experience  at  all.  This  is  exactly 
what  his  doctrines  of  the  inseparability  of  immediacy  and  medi- 
ation amounts  to.  The  immediacy  of  reality  is  a  mediated  im- 
mediacy; and  since  the  mediating  process  is  that  of  thought 
which  can  advance  only  by  means  of  universals,  the  immediacy 
of  the  real  must  transcend  bare  particularity.  In  a  word,  we 

headers  will  bear  in  mind  that  the  term  thought  is  used  throughout  this  dis- 
cussion in  the  meaning  attached  to  it  by  Hegel. 

2Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  VII,  i,  pp.  16-17.        *Werke,  Bd.  XVIII,  p.  90. 
*Werke,  Bd.  XV,  p.  389  (History  of  Philosophy,  trans,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  309). 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  8 1 

may  put  the  matter  so :  if  knowledge  is  coextensive  with  experi- 
ence, then  the  possibility  that  a  mere  particular  may  appear 
within  experience  is  eliminated;  whatever  appears  in  knowledge 
must  be  more  than  a  mere  particular,  for  the  universals  of  thought 
can  lay  hold  only  of  that  which  somehow  itself  is  universal.  The 
abstract  particular  plays  no  part  in  reality. 

Against  the  idea  that  particularity  is  a  form  adequate  to  the 
real  Hegel  has  some  cogent  objections  to  urge.  And  perhaps  it 
would  not  be  too  much  to  say  that  those  objections  are  rather 
obvious.  In  the  first  place,  the  particular  seems  to  be  absolutely 
nothing  so  far  as  experience  is  concerned.  In  order  that  it  may 
be  a  part  of  experience  it  must,  as  Kant  has  shown  us  in  his 
famous  Transcendental  Deduction  of  the  categories,  become 
universalized,  must  lose  its  abstract  particularity.  For  the 
particular  which  is  to  be  experienced  must  remain  identical 
with  itself  through  a  period  of  time;  and  self-identity  is  uni- 
versality. So  the  abstract  particular  has  no  part  to  play  in  ex- 
perience, is  impossible,  indeed,  within  experience.  But,  in  the 
second  place,  if  we  should  grant  the  possibility  of  the  abstract 
particular  within  experience,  we  should  find  ourselves  in  the 
midst  of  some  puzzling  problems.  And  not  the  least  confusing 
is  the  question,  What  is  an  unrelated  particular?  Absolutely 
nothing  can  be  said  about  it,  because  anything  can  be  defined 
only  in  terms  of  its  relations  and  a  particular  has  no  relations. 
Indeed,  an  abstract  particular  is  simply  an  indefinable  absolute. 
Hegel  puts  the  difficulty  thus:  "The  form  of  immediacy  invests 
the  particular  with  the  character  of  independent  or  self-centered 
being.  But  such  predicates  contradict  the  very  essence  of  the 
particular, — which  is  to  be  referred  to  something  else  outside. 
They  thus  invest  the  finite  with  the  character  of  an  absolute."1 
And  of  course  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  experience  could  possibly 
be  composed  of  a  number  of  unrelated  absolutes.  But  it  seems 
useless  to  stress  this  point  further.  It  is  plain,  as  Professor 
Pringle-Pattison  has  urged,  that  the  mere  particular  finds  a 
place  to  exist  nowhere  outside  a  logic  which  is  not  wholly  clear 
about  its  own  procedure.2 

lEnc.,  §  74. 

2I  may  be  permitted  in  this  connection  to  record  my  feeling  that  the  inde- 
terminate act  of  will  upon  which  freewillists  of  a  certain  type  are  wont  to  insist 


82          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

But,  granting  that  Hegel  is  not  guilty  of  hypostasizing  the 
abstract  particular,  what  are  we  to  say  about  his  assertions 
concerning  the  universal?  Are  we  so  sure  that  he  does  not  go 
to  the  other  extreme  and  urge  that  experience  consists  in  blank 
universality?  Have  we  not  seen  that  he  maintains  that  to  think 
the  world  is  to  cast  it  in  the  form  of  the  universal,  and  is  it  not 
true  that  he  reduces  experience  to  terms  of  thought?  Is  he  not 
always  insisting  that  the  universal,  the  Notion,  is  the  very 
quintessence  of  the  object? 

It  is  true,  as  we  have  all  along  seen,  that  Hegel  has  been  gener- 
ally accused  of  reducing  the  real  to  the  form  of  abstract  uni- 
versality. This  is  the  view  of  Haym,  of  Trendelenburg,  of  Lotze, 
indeed  of  all  the  critics  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy  in  general. 
Even  the  sympathetic  critics  of  the  system  are  all  practically 
agreed  in  making  the  same  assumption.  It  is  the  very  nerve 
of  Professor  Pringle-Pattison's  criticism,  which  we  reviewed  in 
some  detail  in  the  preceding  chapter;  and  it  is  the  nerve  also 
of  the  criticisms  of  Professor  Baillie  and  Mr.  McTaggart,  which 
we  shall  presently  consider.  Is  Hegel  really  guilty  of  this  ac- 
cusation that  has  been  brought  against  him  by  so  many  students 
of  his  philosophy,  or  is  he  not?  If  he  is,  then  there  can  be  no 

in  their  arguments  for  freedom  is  nothing  but  such  an  abstract  particular.  It 
matters  not  that  they  try  to  make  their  position  plausible  by  splitting  the  world 
into  a  medley  of  meaningless  possibilities  in  order  to  find  a  haven  for  the  would-be 
category  of  'chance';  the  difficulties  still  remain.  For  is  it  possible  to  attach  any 
meaning  to  this  notion  of  'chance'?  Is  it  anything  more  than  an  expression  of 
ignorance?  Of  course,  the  indeterminist  will  answer  that  it  means  mere  negativity. 
But  to  the  question  as  to  what  is  here  meant  by  negativity  nothing  more  satisfac- 
tory than  a  tautological  answer  is  given.  And  even  granting  that,  as  Professor 
James  asserts,  chance  "is  a  purely  negative  and  relative  term,  giving  us  no  infor- 
mation about  that  of  which  it  is  predicated,  except  that  it  happens  to  be  discon- 
nected with  something  else"  (Witt  to  Believe,  pp.  153-154),  and  granting  further 
that  a  meaning  can  be  attached  to  the  term  as  thus  defined,  what  about  the  event 
of  volition  that  is  supposed  to  be  made  possible  by  it?  Can  it  be  anything  more 
than  an  event  which  has  absolutely  no  relation  to  the  series  in  which  it  occurs, 
and  so  an  event  that  is  only  an  abstract  unrelated  particular?  It  would  seem  to  be 
an  event  in  time  that,  apparently,  takes  place  with  other  events,  and  yet  possesses 
no  real,  intelligible  relation  to  them.  What  such  an  event  could  possibly  be  one  is 
at  a  loss  to  conceive.  It  presents  the  rather  odd  appearance  of  being  one  among 
other  unrelated  absolutes — since  every  voluntary  act  is  presumably  the  result  of 
'chance' — within  the  limits  of  a  finite  experience;  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  think 
of  a  bigger  nest  of  contradictions  than  is  revealed  by  such  an  unsightly  state  of 
affairs. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  83 

question  that  his  system  is  as  far  from  concrete  experience  as 
any  system  well  can  be.  If  he  is  not,  then  with  the  assumption 
fall  the  criticisms  based  upon  it. 

Our  answer  to  the  question  is  already  determined,  and  our 
reasons  for  it  already  set  forth.  The  answer  must  be  an  un- 
equivocal and  emphatic  negative,  its  justification  being  found 
in  the  entire  first  part  of  this  study.  There  it  was  the  aim  to  let 
Hegel  speak  for  himself;  and  if  we  are  to  believe  what  he  has  said, 
then  we  are  forced  to  admit  at  least  that  it  was  not  his  intention 
to  champion  the  position  that  reality  is  simply  an  aggregate  of 
blank  universals,  a  'ballet  of  bloodless  categories.'  He  does 
grant  that  thought  is  conterminous  with  experience,  and,  con- 
sequently, with  reality  itself;  the  real  for  him  exists  only  in. the 
form  of  the  Notion.  About  this  there  need  be  no  dispute. 
Again,  he  as  frankly  admits  that  this  position  forces  him  to 
assume  the  further  position  that  reality  can  be  found  only  in 
universality;  for  "thinking  means  the  bringing  of  something 
into  the  form  of  universality."1  Upon  this  all  may  agree.  But 
the  all-important  point  here,  the  point  upon  which  there  is  dif- 
ference of  opinion,  is  the  determination  of  Hegel's  doctrine  of 
universality.  This  is  really  the  bone  of  contention.  What 
does  Hegel  mean  by  the  form  of  universality  which  reality  as- 
sumes? Does  he  mean  by  the  universal  of  the  Notion  merely 
formal  universality?  If  we  dare  maintain  our  position  against 
the  cloud  of  witnesses  on  the  other  side,  we  must  hold  that  by 
his  doctrine  of  the  universality  of  the  Notion  Hegel  means,  not 
abstract  generality,  but  concrete  universality.  This  was  the 
central  thesis  of  our  discussion  of  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  nature 
of  thought,  which  we  saw  Hegel  define,  not  as  mere  cognition, 
but  as  the  very  life  of  mind  itself.  In  this  Hegelian  thought 
are  included  all  the  categories  of  the  mind,  from  the  barest, 
most  empty  sensation  which  only  points  dimly  to  the  factual 
existence  of  an  objective  world,  to  the  fullest,  most  concrete 
expression  of  the  essential  constitution  of  the  world.  As  Hegel 
conceives  the  matter,  experience  is  not  reduced  to  the  bare 
universals  of  cognition :  cognition  is  only  one  aspect  of  the  mental 
life,  which  includes  within  itself  the  categories  of  feeling  and 

lWerke,  Bd.  XIII,  p.  112  (History  of  Philosophy,  trans.,  Vol.  I,  p.  95). 


84          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

volition  as  well.  To  accuse  him  of  reducing  reality  to  blank 
universality,  therefore,  is  to  misapprehend  what  he  means  by 
the  form  of  the  Notion.1 

Both  Professor  Baillie  and  Mr.  McTaggart  give  their  opinion 
against  the  conclusion  here  advanced.  These  two  professedly 
close  and  sympathetic  students  of  Hegel  maintain  that  he  con- 
ceives reality  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  process  of  discursive 
knowledge,  that  he  reduces  experience  to  blank  universality. 
An  examination  in  some  detail  of  the  grounds  upon  which  these 
critics  base  their  opinions  will  perhaps  serve  to  clear  up  the  prob- 
lem before  us. 

The  Phenomenology  of  Spirit  forms  the  point  of  departure  for 
Professor  Baillie's  criticism.  According  to  the  critic,  Hegel 
arrives  at  his  fundamental  position  in  the  following  manner: 
"All  experience  involves  the  relation  of  subject  to  object,  and 
all  Experience  is  fundamentally  the  life  of  mind;  it  finds  its 
meaning  and  explanation  in  self -consciousness.  Now  in  the 
Phenomenology  it  was  further  shown  that  self-consciousness 
finds  its  most  perfect  expression  in  Absolute  Science.  In  other 
words,  that  while  all  Experience  is  the  realization  of  self-con- 
sciousness, Science  is  its  truest  form:  it  is  'the  crown  of  the  life 
of  mind.'  Therefore  .  .  .  the  immediacy  of  Experience  is  the 
immediacy  of  Science ;  the  mediation  constituting  and  constructing 
Experience  is  the  mediation  of  Science.  What  is  immediate  to 
life  in  indissoluble  union  with  environment  (in  the  widest  sense 
of  the  term)  is  the  same  as  what  is  'given'  or  'immediate'  in 
Knowledge.  In  other  words,  Reality  in  its  essence  is  a  process 
of  Knowledge."  In  the  paragraph  immediately  following  this 
statement  of  Hegel's  supposed  procedure,  the  critic  continues: 
"Now  it  is  safe  to  say  that  such  an  identification  is  absolutely 
groundless.  To  assert  that  the  whole  teeming  life  of  the  world, 
with  its  boundless  activity,  its  inexhaustible  wealth  of  content, 
is  for  knowledge  literally  'given'  in  its  entirety,  and  only  exists 
as  so  'given' — this  is  surely  the  mere  perversion  of  Experience 
in  the  interests  of  a  speculative  preconception."2  Later  he  gives 

*An  appreciation  of  the  difference  between  the  universal  of  cognition,  the  formal 
concept,  and  the  Hegelian  doctrine  of  universality,  the  Notion,  is  absolutely 
fundamental  to  an  understanding  of  the  present  justification  of  Hegel.  It  is  un- 
fortunate that  we  have  no  terms  in  English  to  express,  explicitly,  this  difference. 

^Hegel's  Logic,  pp.  339  ff. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  85 

the  following  as  the  gist  of  his  objection:  "The  process  of  science 
must  not  for  a  moment  be  taken  to  be  equivalent  to  the  full- 
ness of  the  life  of  Experience  itself."1 

The  central  part  of  this  accusation,  we  notice,  is  that  Hegel 
identifies  the  immediacy  of  experience,  that  immediacy  which 
is  the  real,  with  the  immediacy  of  science.  He  is  made  to  main- 
tain that  the  richness  of  reality,  "the  whole  teeming  life  of  the 
world,  with  its  boundless  activity  its  inexhaustible  wealth  of 
content,"  may  legitimately  be  forced  into  the  abstract  framework 
of  scientific  formulae.  The  wealth  of  the  factual  world  and  the 
glory  of  it,  he  is  supposed  to  have  transformed  into  the  poverty 
of  general  principles  and  universal  laws.  Under  his  hands,  it 
is  said,  the  flesh  and  blood  of  living  reality  become  so  attenuated 
that  only  the  skeleton  is  left  us;  and  such  a  skeleton,  we  are 
asked  to  believe  Hegel  would  have  us  accept  for  the  pulsing 
life  of  concrete  experience. 

Now  I  venture  to  think  that  Hegel  cannot  fairly  be  accused  of 
any  such  absurd  contention.  He  must  have  known,  as  well  as 
everybody  else  knows,  that  there  is  more  to  reality  than  mere 
thoughts  about  it.  And  he  did.  This  is  quite  evident  from  the 
emphasis  that  he  places  from  time  to  time  upon  the  factual 
aspect  of  experience.  Over  and  over  again  he  urges  that  thought 
is  true  only  in  so  far  as  it  sinks  itself  in  the  facts,  which  certainly 
are  more  than  the  thoughts  about  them.  With  the  reader's  per- 
mission I  shall  quote  some  other  passages  bearing  on  this  point, 
in  order  to  show  that  Hegel  not  only  is  not  afraid  of,  but  insists 
upon,  the  'logic  of  the  fact.'2  In  the  sixth  section  of  the  Introduc- 
tion to  the  smaller  Logic  we  read:  "The  actuality  of  the  rational 
stands  opposed  by  the  popular  fancy  that  Ideas  and  ideals  are 
nothing  but  chimeras,  and  philosophy  a  mere  system  of  such 
phantasms.  It  is  also  opposed  by  the  very  different  fancy  that 
Ideas  and  ideals  are  something  far  too  excellent  to  have  actuality, 
or  something  too  impotent  to  procure  it  for  themselves.  This 
divorce  between  idea  and  reality  is  especially  dear  to  the  analytic 
understanding  which  looks  upon  its  own  abstractions,  dreams 

Ubid.,  p.  373- 

2See  in  this  connection  the  entire  twelfth  section  of  the  smaller  Logic.  There 
Hegel  points  out  how  thought  cannot  rest  in  its  'unrealized  universality'  apart  from 
the  facts. 


86          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S   SYSTEM. 

though  they  are,  as  something  true  and  real,  and  prides  itself 
on  the  imperative  'ought,'  which  it  takes  especial  pleasure  in 
prescribing  even  on  the  field  of  politics.  .  .  .  The  object  of 
philosophy  is  the  Idea :  and  the  Idea  is  not  so  impotent  as  merely 
to  have  a  right  or  obligation  to  exist  without  actually  existing." 
In  the  twenty-fourth  section  we  read:  "If  thought  tries  to  form 
a  notion  of  things,  this  notion  (as  well  as  its  proximate  phases 
the  judgment  and  syllogism)  cannot  be  composed  of  articles  and 
relations  which  are  alien  and  irrelevant  to  the  things."  And  in 
the  second  lecture  note:  "When  we  think,  we  renounce  our 
selfish  and  particular  being,  sink  ourselves  in  the  thing,  allow 
thought  to  follow  its  own  course,  and,  if  we  add  anything  of 
our  own,  we  think  ill."  If  these  passages  (and  others  of  similar 
import)  do  not  mean  that  thought  and  the  science  of  thought 
have  to  do  with  factual  existence,  then  I  fail  to  see  what  they  do 
mean.  Thought  always  has  an  objective  reference,  they  tell 
us,  apart  from  which  thought  is  nothing  more  than  an  abstrac- 
tion; if  the  object  is  neglected,  if  the  thing  is  left  out  of  account, 
thought  is  useless.  Indeed,  if  the  object  is  neglected,  thought 
is  nothing;  for  it  is  just  the  expression  of  the  essence  of  the  object. 
This  would  seem  to  be  Hegel's  meaning  in  these  passages,  and  it 
certainly  is  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  his  system. 

The  above  accusation  of  Professor  Baillie,  one  seems  forced 
to  say,  is  based  upon  a  complete  misinterpretation  of  Hegel's 
actual  procedure.  In  the  preface  to  the  Phenomenology  Hegel 
does,  indeed,  identify  the  'element  of  science'  with  the  standpoint 
of  absolute  knowledge;  and  this  category,  as  we  saw  in  the  first 
chapter  of  this  study,  is  the  truth  of  experience.  Thus  it  is  true, 
in  a  sense,  that  the  'element  of  science'  is  the  truth  of  experience. 
But — this  is  the  vital  point — Hegel  does  not  mean  by  science 
here  what  Professor  Baillie  seems  to  think  he  means  by  it, 
namely,  a  system  of  abstract  and  general  laws.  On  the  contrary, 
he  means  by  it  just  that  concrete  point  of  view  of  the  category 
of  absolute  knowledge,  whose  nature  and  whose  necessity  as  a 
presupposition  of  all  experience  it  was  the  province  of  the  Phe- 
nomenology to  work  out  and  elaborate.  Therefore,  when  Hegel 
maintains  that  we  arrive  at  the  truth  of  experience  only  when 
we  enter  the  realm  of  science  and  that  in  this  realm  we  seize 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  87 

reality  in  its  essence,  he  certainly  does  not  argue  that  reality  is 
nothing  more  than  scientific  laws  and  universal  principles,  nor 
does  he  assume  that  the  content  of  abstract  science  is  'equivalent 
to  the  fullness  of  life  itself/  Such  abstract  principles,  he  would 
say,  have  their  part  to  play  in  experience;  but  their  part,  though 
unquestionably  important  and  extremely  significant  for  any 
theory  of  ultimate  reality,  is  not  to  assume  the  role  of  abso- 
lute and  exhaustive  formulae  or  principles.  That  science 
which  is  exhaustive  of  reality  is  only  'absolute  science';  it  is 
on  the  plane  not  of  the  Understanding,  but  of  Reason, 
where  all  'finite'  categories  are  viewed  in  their  true  light  and 
where  mere  generality  is  seen  to  be  what  it  really  is — a  blank 
abstraction. 

Hegel's  real  position  on  this  point  may  perhaps  be  set  forth 
by  the  following  considerations.  The  only  immediacy  which 
he  would  think  of  equating  with  reality  is  the  immediacy  of 
what  he  calls  'absolute  science.'  Now  what  is  this  immediacy? 
The  immediacy  of  'absolute  science'  is  completely  mediated 
immediacy,  or  thoroughly  rationalized  experience.  There  are 
various  forms  of  immediacy,  such  as  that  of  common  sense,  of 
science,  of  religion,  of  philosophy,  each  of  which,  according  to 
Hegel,  has  a  degree  of  reality  attaching  to  it  proportional  to  the 
exhaustiveness  of  the  mediation  which  it  involves;  the  immediacy 
of  'absolute  science'  is  the  highest  of  these  forms  of  immediacy, 
and  is  absolutely  concrete  because  it  involves  absolutely  exhaust- 
ive mediation.  Furthermore,  each  more  exhaustively  mediated 
form  of  immediacy  does  not  simply  negate  the  lower;  it  negates 
and  affirms  it,  and  affirms  by  negating.  This,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  the  unique  aspect  of  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  negative  function 
of  thought.  The  various  stages  of  immediacy,  therefore,  are  not 
opposed  to,  and  more  or  less  independent  of  each  other;  on  the 
contrary,  each  is  involved  in  all  and  all  in  each.  And  from  this 
it  follows  that  the  immediacy  of  'absolute  science,'  which  is  the 
only  completely  mediated  immediacy,  ipso  facto  includes  within 
itself  all  the  other  forms  of  immediacy ;  the  truth  of  all  finds  its 
expression  in  this  form  of  immediacy.  Thus  that  immediacy 
with  which  Hegel  identifies  reality  is  an  immediacy  which  includes 
within  itself  the  entire  realm  of  experience,  in  its  most  trivial  as 


88          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

well  as  in  its  most  momentous  and  sublime  reaches.  For  such  is 
the  immediacy  of  'absolute  science.'1 

So  much  for  Professor  Baillie's  misinterpretation  of  Hegel. 
I  think  we  have  shown  that  his  criticism  is  beside  the  mark,  and 
that  is  all  we  are  concerned  to  do  at  present.  The  criticism  itself 
implies  a  position  the  tenability  of  which  we  shall  have  to  call 
in  question  later  on  in  this  chapter.  We  turn  now  to  a  consid- 
eration of  Mr.  McTaggart's  objection. 

Mr.  McTaggart's  criticism,  though  essentially  the  same  as 
that  of  Professor  Baillie,  is  presented  from  a  different  point  of 
view  and  so  demands  separate  notice.  The  conclusion  of  the 
Philosophy  of  Mind  is  made  the  basis  for  this  attack.  There, 
it  is  asserted,  Hegel  explicitly  maintains  that  philosophy  is  the 
highest  expression  of  Spirit,  and  thus  is  guilty  of  equating  reality 
with  philosophical  knowledge.  But,  the  critic  objects,  the  po- 
sition that  in  philosophy  one  finds  the  complete  exposition  of  ulti- 
mate reality  is  untenable.  "Philosophy  itself  is  knowledge,  it 
is  neither  action  nor  feeling.  And  there  seems  nothing  in  Hegel's 
account  of  it  to  induce  us  to  change  the  meaning  of  the  word 
in  this  respect.  .  .  .  We  are  thus,  it  would  seem,  bound  down 
to  the  view  that  Hegel  considered  the  supreme  nature  of  Spirit 
to  be  expressed  as  knowledge,  and  as  knowledge  only."2  "But 
knowledge,"  we  are  further  informed,  "does  not  exhaust  the 
nature  of  Spirit.  The  simplest  introspection  will  show  us  that, 
besides  knowledge,  we  have  also  volition,  and  the  feeling  of 
pleasure  and  pain.  These  are  primd  facie  different  from  knowl- 
edge, and  it  does  not  seem  possible  that  they  should  ever  be 
reduced  to  it."3  Therefore,  the  critic  concludes,  in  the  final 
standpoint  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Hegel  tried  "to  ignore  volition, 
and  to  ignore  pleasure  and  pain."  And,  of  course,  "a  view  of 
Spirit  which  does  this  is  fatally  one-sided."4 

The  assumption  involved  in  this  criticism  is  quite  evident. 
It  is  that  Philosophy,  as  Hegel  defines  it,  has  to  do  with  purely 
discursive  knowledge,  that  is,  with  cognition  as  opposed  to  feeling 
and  volition,  and  with  this  alone.  As  the  critic  himself  puts  it: 

lSee  E.  H.  Hollands,  "The  Relation  of  Science  to  Concrete  Experience,"  The 
Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  XV,  pp.  614-626. 
zStudies  in  the  Hegelian  Dialectic,  §  181. 
*Ibid.,  §  189.  *Ibid.,  §  193. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  89 

'Philosophy  itself  is  knowledge,  it  is  neither  action  nor  feeling. 
And  there  seems  nothing  in  Hegel's  account  of  it  to  induce  us 
to  change  the  meaning  of  the  word  in  this  respect."  Now  it 
is  just  this  assertion  that  I  challenge.  In  the  first  place,  as  I 
have  already  argued  in  the  somewhat  detailed  discussion  of 
Hegel's  doctrine  of  immediacy  and  mediation,  the  account  which 
Hegel  gives  us  of  philosophical  knowledge  not  only  'induces'  us, 
but  forces  us,  to  define  philosophy  as  a  science  of  more  than  mere 
cognition.  In  point  of  fact,  philosophy,  as  Hegel  uses  the  term, 
is  the  science  of  experience,  since  it  has  to  do  with  that  life  of 
mind,  reason,  which  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  experience 
itself.  In  the  second  place,  the  assumption  here  is  the  same  as 
the  assumption  above,  and  all  we  have  said  in  answer  to  the 
latter  applies  equally  well  to  the  former.  The  realm  of  philos- 
ophy Hegel  identifies  with  the  realm  of  'absolute  science';  and 
it  must  never  Be  forgotten  that  the  standpoint  of  'absolute 
science'  is  to  be  found  in  the  category  of  absolute  knowledge. 
Philosophical  knowledge,  therefore,  always  means  more  than 
mere  abstract  cognition:  it  is  an  immediacy  which  includes 
within  itself  the  whole  life  of  Spirit. 

Mr.  McTaggart  is  willing  to  admit  that  the  conclusion  which 
he  sees  in  the  last  division  of  the  Philosophy  of  Mind  is  palpably 
inconsistent  with  the  outcome  of  the  Logic.  In  the  Absolute 
Idea,  he  grants,  volition  as  well  as  cognition  is  present.  Hence 
the  Absolute  Idea  "must  be  an  idea  richer  and  fuller  than  that 
of  Cognition — richer  and  fuller  by  the  content  of  the  idea  of 
volition.  .  .  .  The  Absolute  Idea  then  contains  within  itself 
the  idea  of  knowledge  as  a  transcended  moment."  Thus  "in 
giving  the  abstract  framework  of  absolute  reality  in  the  Logic" 
Hegel  has  at  the  same  time  given  "a  framework  for  something 
which,  whatever  it  is,  is  more  than  any  form  of  mere  cognition."1 
Now  I  submit  that  the  actual  result  of  the  Philosophy  of  Mind 
is  not  in  the  least  inconsistent  with  this  result  of  the  Logic. 
Hegel  always  and  everywhere  maintains  that  philosophical 
knowledge  includes  within  itself  feeling,  volition,  cognition,  in 
short,  all  the  action  and  passion  of  the  human  mind;  and  that, 
therefore,  philosophy  is  the  science  of  the  real,  if  the  realm  of 

llbid.,  §  203. 


90          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

experience  be  the  real.  This  position  is  the  presupposition  of 
the  entire  Encyclopedia,  and  it  is  just  as  much  involved  in  the 
last  part  as  it  is  in  the  first.  The  proof  of  this  contention  has 
already  been  given  in  our  attempt  to  state  Hegel's  doctrine  of 
thought  and  to  determine  the  position  of  the  Logic  in  the  system. 
It  is  suggestive  and  instructive  to  notice  that,  in  criticising 
Hegel's  contention  that  philosophical  knowledge  is  conterminous 
with  the  real,  Mr.  McTaggart  attacks  the  very  contention  which 
he  himself  immediately  afterwards  champions.  To  see  that 
this  is  true,  one  need  only  compare  with  Hegel's  thought  the 
critic's  ultimate  synthesis  of  the  real.  In  stating  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  form  of  unity  which  he  thinks  would  be  an  adequate 
expression  of  reality,  Mr.  McTaggart  says:  "It  must  be  some 
state  of  conscious  spirit  in  which  the  opposition  of  cognition 
and  volition  is  overcome — in  which  we  neither  judge  our  ideas 
by  the  world,  nor  the  world  by  our  ideas,  but  are  aware  that  inner 
and  outer  are  in  such  close  and  necessary  harmony  that  even 
the  thought  of  possible  discord  has  become  impossible.  In  its 
unity  not  only  cognition  and  volition,  but  feeling  also,  must  be 
blended  and  united.  In  some  way  or  other  it  must  have  over- 
come the  rift  in  discursive  knowledge,  and  the  immediate  must  for 
it  be  no  longer  the  alien.  It  must  be  as  direct  as  art,  as  certain 
and  universal  as  philosophy."1  It  matters  not  that  these  lines 
are  supposed  by  their  author  to  express  an  idea  essentially  dif- 
ferent from  what  Hegel  means  by  thought;  one  could  not  want 
a  better  summary  of  Hegel's  doctrine.  Must  feeling,  volition, 
and  cognition  all  be  blended  in  the  expression  of  ultimate  reality? 
This,  Hegel  says,  is  accomplished  in  that  state  of  conscious 
spirit  which  he  calls  thought:  "It  is  present  in  every  sensation, 
in  cognition  and  knowledge,  in  the  instincts,  and  in  volition  in 
so  far  as  these  are  attributes  of  the  human  mind."2  For  "in 
the  human  being  there  is  only  one  reason  in  feeling,  volition,  and 
thought  or  cognition."3  Must  the  rift  in  discursive  knowledge 
have  been  removed  in  this  unity?  This,  Hegel  tells  us,  is  the 
characteristic  peculiar  to  philosophical  knowledge:  the  sciences 
"are  finite  because  their  mode  of  thought,  as  a  merely  formal 
act,  derives  its  content  from  without.  Their  content  therefore 

llbid.t  §  206.  2Werke,  Bd.  IX,  p.  12.  *Enc.,  §  471. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  91 

is  not  known  as  moulded  from  within  through  the  thoughts 
which  lie  at  the  ground  of  it,  and  form  and  content  do  not 
thoroughly  interpenetrate  each  other.  This  partition  disappears 
in  philosophy,  and  thus  justifies  its  title  of  infinite  knowledge."1 
Must  the  immediate  be  no  longer  alien  for  the  expression  of 
the  ultimately  real?  Our  demand,  Hegel  assures  us,  is  satisfied 
in  Spirit:  "As  Adam  said  to  Eve,  'Thou  art  flesh  of  my  flesh  and 
bone  of  my  bone,'  so  says  the  Spirit,  'This  object  is  spirit  of  my 
spirit,  and  all  alienation  has  disappeared.'  "2  Should  that  form  of 
expression  which  exhausts  the  real  be  as  direct  as  art  and  as 
universal  as  philosophy?  Such  a  combination  Hegel  thinks 
he  has  found  in  philosophy  itself:  "The  multifarious  whole  is 
reflected  in  it  as  in  a  single  focus,  in  the  Notion  which  knows 
itself."3  In  short,  philosophical  knowledge,  as  Hegel  has  de- 
fined it  for  us,  meets  all  the  requirements  which  Mr.  McTaggart 
sees  fit  to  make  of  the  medium  through  which  reality  may 
receive  adequate  expression.  And  it  does  seem  rather  hard 
that  an  author  should  be  criticized  for  upholding  exactly  the  same 
position  (barring  terminology)  as  his  critic  champions. 

Further  detailed  discussion  of  this  point  seems  superfluous. 
Enough  has  already  been  said  to  show  us  not  only  that  we  are 
justified  in  concluding,  but  that  we  are  forced  to  conclude,  that 
Hegel  does  not  equate  reality  with  any  process  of  formal  knowl- 
edge. Such  a  position  would  be  contrary  to  his  own  frequent 
explicit  assertions,  as  well  as  to  the  presuppositions  and  actual 
procedure  of  his  system.  For  his  fundamental  contention, 
both  by  word  and  deed,  is  that  thought  is  the  unifying  principle 
of  experience  which  includes  within  its  diamond  net  the  entire 
sphere  of  the  activities  and  interests  of  the  human  soul.  It 
subsumes  within  itself  sensuous  experience,  moral  and  religious 
experience,  scientific  experience,  all  experience  of  which  man  is 
capable;  it  is  the  all-pervading  harmonizer  that  illumines  every 
phase  of  experience  and  makes  it  what  it  is.  Only  such  thought 
as  this,  that  is  to  say,  experience,  is  what  Hegel  claims  to  be  an 
adequate  expression  of  the  ultimately  real.  And  with  this  we 

1Enc.,  §  133,  lecture  note. 

*Werke,  Bd.  VIII,  p.  34  (Philosophy  of  Right,  trans.,  p.  n). 

aWerke,  Bd.  XIII,  p.  68  (History  of  Philosophy,  trans.,  Vol.  I,  p.  54). 


92  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

leave  these  misunderstandings  and  pass  on  to  ask  what  form 
reality  does  actually  assume  in  Hegel's  system. 

There  occurs  a  passage  in  Professor  Bosanquet's  Logic  which 
runs  as  follows:  "It  is  important  that  we  should  dismiss  the 
notion  that  the  higher  degrees  of  knowledge  are  necessarily  and 
in  the  nature  of  intelligence  framed  out  of  abstractions  that  omit 
whatever  has  interest  and  peculiarity  in  the  real  world.  Nothing 
has  been  more  fatal  to  the  truth  and  vitality  of  ideas  than  this 
prejudice."1  It  is  certain  that  no  prejudice  has  been  more  fatal 
to  an  appreciation  of  Hegel's  philosophy,  and  that,  too,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  the  author  has  constantly  warned  against 
the  danger.  And  it  would  seem  that  the  time  has  come  when 
such  a  prejudice  should  be  laid  aside  and  an  unbiased  effort 
made  to  see  exactly  what  Hegel  has  taught  concerning  the  uni- 
versal aspect  which  he  thinks  every  unitary  experience  must  have. 
Is  there  any  other  conception  of  universality  possible  than  that 
which  sets  it  down  to  mere  abstraction?  If  there  is,  may  it 
not  be  such  a  universality  as  will  offer  us  a  consistent  explanation 
of  experience  and  a  satisfactory  account  of  the  ultimately  real? 
May  it  not  also  be  just  the  conception  of  universality  that  Hegel 
has  in  mind  when  he  speaks  of  the  'Notion,'  with  which  he 
equates  reality  and  which  he  ever  and  anon  assures  us  "is  not  a 
mere  sum  of  features  common  to  several  things"?2 

An  honest  look  at  experience  forces  us,  it  would  seem,  to  assert 
that  the  real  universal  of  actual  thought  is  not  that  of  formal 
logic.  It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  we  contradict  the  rules  of  the 
time-honored  syllogism  in  our  every-day  thinking.  Every 
developing  science  is  an  enigma  to  the  formal  principles  of  dis- 
tributed middle  and  negative  premises ;  and  many  of  the  simplest 
arguments  of  common  sense  cannot  be  forced  into  the  syllogistic 
form.  We  are  not  surprised,  therefore,  that  man,  qua  man, 
exists  nowhere  outside  the  texts  on  formal  logic:  not  man  has 
being  in  the  real  world,  but  only  men.  Professors  Bradley  and 
Bosanquet,  following  the  lead  of  Hegel,  have  so  clearly  and 
exhaustively  exposed  these  discrepancies  in  the  procedure  and 
presupposition  of  formal  logic  that  it  would  be  superfluous,  if 
not  presumptuous,  for  me  to  attempt  to  enlarge  on  them  here. 

lLogic,  Vol.  I,  pp.  62-63. 
*Enc.,  §  163. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  93 

It  is  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose  simply  to  point  out  that 
the  fundamental  difficulty  with  the  traditional  logic  is  that  it 
deals  with  an  abstraction.  It  separates  from  each  other  two 
essentially  inseparable  aspects  of  experience,  namely,  form  and 
content,  and  then  concerns  itself  with  one,  namely,  form,  in 
isolation.  There  should  be  no  wonder  that  its  results  are  not 
applicable  to  concrete  experience;  the  wonder  perhaps  is  that, 
when  so  applied,  they  do  not  land  us  in  more  numerous  anti- 
nomies. Of  course,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  thinking  in  the  ab- 
stract, as  if  thought  were  indifferent  to  its  object;  and  the  uni- 
versals  that  result  from  such  an  imaginary  process  can  be  nothing 
more  than  mere  make-believes.  These  universals  of  formal  logic, 
as  such,  can  have  no  part  in  reality.1 

What,  then,  we  ask,  is  the  nature  of  the  universal  of  concrete 
thought?  I  know  of  no  better  or  clearer  definition  than  that  given 
by  Professor  Bosanquet  in  the  introductory  chapter  to  his  Logic.2 
He  there  warns  us  to  beware  of  thinking  of  the  universals  as 
the  result  of  the  process  of  selective  omission  of  differences 
among  phenomena ;  this  is  the  error  which  proves  so  fatal  to  the 
significance  of  formal  logic.  The  true  universal,  the  universal 
that  actually  has  a  place  in  concrete  experience,  is  rather  the 
result  of  a  synthesis  of  differences,  the  constructive  analysis  of 
phenomena.  That  is  to  say,  progression  towards  true  univer- 
sality is  simply  the  continuous  organization  and  systematization 
of  the  data  of  experience.  So  far  from  it  being  true  that  thought 
takes  place  in  vacuity  apart  from  any  content,  thinking  is  nothing 
but  the  progressive  organization  of  its  content;  apart  from  its 
content  thought  is  absolutely  nothing.  Since  form  and  content 
are  thus  inseparable,  the  true  form  can  be  realized  only  when  it  is 
viewed  in  its  essential  relation  to  its  correlative;  and  when  it  is 
j  so  viewed  it  is  seen  to  include  the  content  within  itself.  The  true 
1  universal,  therefore,  is  thought-content.  It  does  not  have  to 
wait  for  its  filling  from  without,  for  it  has  within  it  its  own  filling, 
and  lives  only  by  virtue  of  the  vital  significance  that  it  possesses 

:The  above  is  not  intended  as  a  criticism  of  the  disciplinary  value  of  formal 
logic  as  a  course  of  study.  The  criticism  is  directed  at  formal  logic  as  a  theory 
of  knowledge.  Undoubtedly,  formal  logic  has  a  disciplinary  value;  but  there  can 
be  no  question  about  its  abstractness. 

2Cf.  Vol.  I,  pp.  63  ff. 


94          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

in  reference  to  its  content.  In  a  word,  the  universal  of  thought 
is  concrete,  a  synthesis  of  particulars.  It  has  no  meaning  what- 
ever, not  even  the  semblance  of  one,  in  isolation  from  the  material 
aspect  of  experience  of  which  it  is  the  form.1 

This  change  of  attitude  towards  the  syllogistic  logic  of  the 
Scholastics  and  this  doctrine  of  the  concrete  universal  are  really 
the  fundaments  of  Hegel's  system.  After  the  first  Part  of  the 
present  study  this  statement  hardly  needs  further  proof.  It  is 
true  that  the  change  in  view-point  was  more  or  less  unconsciously 
present  in  the  epistemology  of  Kant  and  Jacobi,  as  Hegel  himself 
points  out.2  But  the  change  comes  to  full  consciousness  of  itself 
only  in  Hegel's  own  work.  He  openly  revolts  against  the  tra- 
ditional tendency  to  regard  the  concept,  judgment,  and  syllogism, 
as  if  they  were  sharply  differentiated  forms  of  abstract  thought 
and  not  living  manifestations  of  truth.3  Naturally  this  change  of 
view  concerning  the  nature  of  thought  brought  with  it  a  change 
of  view  concerning  the  result  of  thought.  Since  thought  is  no 
longer  regarded  as  a  process  in  abstraction,  the  universal  of 
thought  can  no  longer  be  thought  of  as  the  result  of  abstraction. 
If  thought  is  the  vital  unity  of  the  mind,  the  true  universal  of 
thought  is  simply  the  content  of  mind  thoroughly  rationalized 
and  exhaustively  explained.  If  thought  is  the  Notion,  the 
universal  of  thought  is  the  universal  of  the  Notion.  And  "the 
universal  of  the  Notion  is  not  a  mere  sum  of  features  common  to 
several  things,  confronted  by  a  particular  which  enjoys  an 
existence  of  its  own.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  self-particularizing 
or  self-specifying,  and  with  undimmed  clearness  finds  itself  at 
home  in  its  antithesis."4  That  this  doctrine  of  thought  and 
universality  is  peculiarly  Hegel's  own,  there  seems  to  be  no 
doubt:  the  doctrine  is  the  burden  of  his  philosophy. 

From  these  considerations  we  may  pass  at  once  to  the  con- 
clusion that  for  Hegel  the  ultimately  real  must  assume  the  form 
of  concrete  individuality.  Neither  the  mere  particular  nor 
the  blank  universal  will  suffice ;  the  real  must  be  the  particularized 

lFor  an  elaboration  of  this  doctrine  of  the  concreteness  of  thought,  see  the  article 
by  Professor  Sabine,  already  referred  to.  (The  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  XVI, 
pp.  154-169.) 

2Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  XVII,  p.  30.  3Cf.  Werke,  Bd.  V.;  also  Enc.,  §§  160  ff. 

*Enc.,  §  163,  lecture-note  (i). 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  95 

universal,  the  universalized  particular.  "Actuality  is  always 
the  unity  of  universality  and  particularity,"  as  Hegel  himself 
puts  it.1  "Everything  is  a  Notion,  the  existence  of  which  is  the 
differentiation  of  its  members  or  functions,  so  that  the  universal 
nature  of  the  Notion  gives  itself  external  reality  by  means  of 
particularity,  and  thereby,  and  as  a  negative  reflection-into-self, 
makes  itself  an  individual."2  The  following  hypothetical  argu- 
ment seems  to  sum  up  the  matter  :  If  it  be  true  that  thought 
is  conterminous  with  experience,  then  certainly  experience  must 
somehow  assume  the  form  of  universality;  discrete  particulars 
are  excluded  from  it.  If,  in  the  second  place,  it  be  true  that 
thought  is  simply  the  "indigenous  becoming  (einheimische 
Werden)  of  the  concrete  content,"3  then  its  universality  must 
be  concrete,  that  is  to  say,  the  particulars  must  find  their  place 
within  the  sphere  of  the  universal,  which,  itself,  gets  its  meaning 
only  by  virtue  of  this  relation  to  the  particulars.  Therefore 
the  form  of  universality  which  experience  takes  (and  it  must 
take  some  form  of  universality)  can  be  only  that  of  the  particu- 
larized universal,  or,  in  a  word,  that  of  the  individual.  Now 
the  chief  purpose  of  this  study  has  been  to  show  that  Hegel 
asserts  the  premises  of  this  argument.  It  must  be  shown  that 
this  is  erroneous  before  one  may  legitimately  claim  that  Hegel 
equates  reality  either  with  the  bare  particular  or  with  the  abstract 
universal,  or  deny  that  he  gives  to  the  real  the  form  of  individ- 
uality. 

That  this  is  the  correct  account  of  Hegel's  view  of  reality  may 
be  shown  in  another  way.  The  argument  that  is  to  be  found  in 
the  Logic,  under  the  head  of  the  Notion,  is  in  direct  confirmation 
of  the  conclusion  we  have  just  reached.  So  we  turn  to  this 
argument  for  further  evidence  on  the  point.4 

For  our  present  purpose  it  will  be  sufficient  to  state  the  argu- 
ment merely  in  its  general  outline.  The  triadic  movement 
Hegel  expresses  under  the  following  heads:  (a)  The  Subjective 
Notion;  (b)  The  Object;  and  (c)  The  Idea.  The  development 
here  involved  may  be  put  in  the  following  general  manner.  At 
the  standpoint  of  the  Subjective  Notion  we  have  presented  to 

lWerke,  Bd.  VIII.,  §  270  (Philosophy  of  Right,  trans.,  p.  270). 

*Enc.,  §  181.  3See  the  preface  to  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit. 

*Cf.  Enc.,  §  160  ff.;  also  Werke,  Bd.  V. 


96          THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

us  the  Notion  as  indeterminate  and  formal,  the  truth  is  given  only 
implicitly.1  In  a  sense,  this  may  be  said  to  be  the  point  of  view 
of  formal  logic,  from  which  thought  is  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of 
subjective  process  whose  end  is  the  formation  of  concepts  and 
the  manipulation  of  those  concepts  in  the  higher  mental  processes 
of  the  judgment  and  the  syllogism.  But,  as  Hegel  goes  on  to 
show,  it  is  impossible  to  rest  at  this  point  of  view.  It  has 
inherent  in  it  its  own  deficiency,  in  that  it  is  an  inadequate  ex- 
pression of  the  real  nature  of  the  Notion.  Thought  cannot  be 
confined  to  subjectivity;  it  is  objective  as  well.  Thus  we  are 
led  on  to  the  consideration  of  the  Object — the  second  stage  of 
the  dialectical  development.  The  Object  is  the  'realization* 
of  the  Notion,  and  the  transition  is  accomplished  through  the 
syllogism  of  necessity,  that  is,  the  disjunctive  syllogism.2  But 
objectivity,  like  subjectivity,  is  not  an  adequate  expression  of 
the  Notion;  the  Notion  is  neither  merely  subjective  nor  merely 
objective.  The  content,  apart  from  the  form,  just  as  the  form 
apart  from  the  content,  is  an  abstraction;  the  true  view  of  the 
matter  is  reached  only  when  we  see  that  the  two  are  one  and  in- 
separable. This  unity  of  the  two  is  the  Idea,  which  is  truth 
complete — the  ultimately  real. 

It  should  be  observed  that  this  whole  development  is  nothing 
more  than  the  progressive  definition  of  the  nature  of  the  Notion 
itself.  As  we  shall  see  more  fully  below,  the  thesis  is  simply  the 
expression  of  the  form  that  the  Notion,  because  of  its  very  nature 
as  form,  assumes.  The  antithesis  is  the  'realization'  of  the  Notion ; 
that  is  to  say,  when  the  Notion  has  exhaustively  differentiated 
itself  in  the  judgment  of  necessity,  the  disjunctive  judgment, 
it  is  seen  to  involve  the  object.  The  synthesis,  finally,  as  Hegel 
himself  observes,  is  nothing  but  the  Notion  taken  in  its  partic- 
ularity and  universality.  "Its  'ideal'  content  is  nothing  but 
the  Notion  in  its  detailed  terms:  its  'real'  content  is  only  the  ex- 
hibition which  the  real  gives  itself  in  the  form  of  external  ex- 
istence."3 In  a  word,  the  Idea  for  Hegel  is  simply  the  Notion 
taken  in  its  complete  nature,  as,  on  the  one  hand,  a  substantial 
somewhat,  and,  on  the  other  nand,  a  meaning. 

Since,  now,  the  Idea  is  the  form  which  ultimate  reality  assumes 

iCf.  Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  31.  2Cf.  Enc.,  §  193-  *Ibid.,  §  213. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  97 

in  Hegel's  system,  it  follows  that  the  real  is  in  the  form  of  the 
Notion.  This  conclusion  is  in  exact  agreement  with  what  we 
have  been  insisting  on  all  along  in  this  study,  and  it  might  be 
supported  by  numerous  passages  from  various  contexts.  But 
this  hardly  seems  necessary:  presumably  it  will  not  be  disputed 
that  the  Hegelian  philosophy  has  to  do  with  the  unity  of  the 
Notion.  If,  then,  we  can  here  establish  the  claim  that  the  unity 
of  the  Notion  is  that  of  the  individual,  our  contention  above  will 
have  been  corroborated  from  another  point  of  departure. 

And  it  would  seem  that  Hegel  has  left  us  in  no  doubt  con- 
cerning his  position  on  this  point.  In  the  first  division  of  his 
discussion  of  the  Notion,  referred  to  above,  he  tells  us  quite 
plainly  that  the  ultimate  form  of  the  Subjective  Notion  is  in- 
dividuality. The  three  members  of  the  triad  in  this  division  are 
Universality,  Particularity,  and  Individuality.  Individuality  is 
thus  made  the  synthesis  of  the  other  two,  and  consequently  must 
be  considered  the  highest  expression  of  the  Subjective  Notion. 
And  there  seems  to  be  no  particular  difficulty  in  understanding 
what  Hegel  means  by  the  individual.  He  means  by  it  "the 
reflection-into-self  of  the  specific  characters  of  universality  and 
particularity,"  x  or  determinate  universality  (bestimmte  Allge- 
meinheii).2  In  contradistinction  to  indefinite  multiplicity,  it  is 
"the  particular  and  the  universal  in  an  identity."3  In  a  word, 
individuality  means  for  Hegel  what  it  means  for  others,  namely, 
unity  within  difference,  harmony  within  diversity,  a  systematic 
whole.  The  Subjective  Notion,  therefore,  is  a  whole  within  which 
differences  are  found  and  through  which  those  differences  get 
their  significance  and  reality.  This  seems  to  be  a  legitimate 
conclusion  from  the  dialectical  movement  that  takes  place 
within  the  Notion  as  Notion. 

But  just  here  an  objection  awaits  us.  This  may  all  be  true 
of  the  Subjective  Notion,  but  is  it  true  of  the  Idea?  Can  we 
legitimately  argue  that,  because  the  ultimate  expression  of  the 
Subjective  Notion  is  individuality,  the  ultimate  expression  of 
the  real  must  be  individuality?  Have  we  not  already  seen  that 
the  Subjective  Notion  is  the  thesis  of  a  triad  of  which  the  Idea 
is  the  synthesis,  and  is  it  not  therefore  false  reasoning  to  say  that 

llbid.,  §  163.  2Werke,  Bd.  V,  p.  58.  *Enc.,  §  171. 


9§  THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

the  form  of  the  Subjective  Notion  is  adequate  to  the  Idea?  In 
a  word,  does  the  fact  that  Hegel  maintains  that  individuality 
is  the  consummation  of  the  process  of  thought  justify  us  in  the 
inference  that  for  him  the  real  is  individual? 

We  have  already  answered  this  objection  in  what  we  said 
above  concerning  the  fact  that  the  Idea  is  simply  the  Notion 
exhaustively  analyzed.  It  is  true  that  the  Idea  is  the  Notion 
completely  differentiated;  but  it  is  the  Notion  nevertheless.  The 
dialectical  development  by  means  of  which  we  are  led  to  the 
Absolute  Idea  indicates  this;  for  the  Absolute  Idea  is  the  syn- 
thesis of  the  triadic  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Notion. 
Indeed,  the  whole  dialectical  development  of  the  third  part  of  the 
Logic  goes  to  prove  that  the  Idea  is  the  most  perfect  expression 
of  the  Notion.  The  Idea  and  individuality  thus  coincide.  It  is 
true,  of  course,  that  by  passing  in  the  Idea  the  Notion  is  enriched 
and  intensified  by  all  the  intervening  categories ;  this  enrichment 
is  really  the  significance  of  the  advance.  But  this  does  not  at  all 
affect  the  fact  that  the  form  of  the  Notion  does  not  change  in  the 
process,  and  that  the  Idea  is  simply  the  Notion  seen  in  its  truest 
light. 

This  is  perhaps  sufficient  answer  to  the  objection.  But  there 
is  involved  in  it  an  assumption  the  error  of  which  it  will  be  worth 
while  to  expose.  The  assumption  is  that  in  the  treatment  of  the 
Subjective  Notion  Hegel  is  dealing  with  the  formal  concept  of 
the  logic  of  the  schools.  One  or  two  passages  from  the  smaller 
Logic  bearing  on  this  point  will  suffice  to  show  the  falsity  of  the 
assumption.  "It  is  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  objects  which 
form  the  content  of  our  mental  ideas  come  first  and  that  our  sub- 
jective agency  then  supervenes,  and  by  the  aforesaid  operation  of 
abstraction,  and  by  colligating  the  points  possessed  in  common 
by  the  objects,  frames  notions  of  them.  Rather  the  Notion  is 
the  genuine  first;  and  things  are  what  they  are  through  the 
action  of  the  Notion,  immanent  in  them,  and  revealing  itself  in 
them."1  "No  complaint  is  oftener  made  against  the  Notion  than 
that  it  is  abstract.  Of  course  it  is  abstract,  if  abstract  means 
that  the  medium  in  which  the  Notion  exists  is  thought  in  general 
and  not  the  sensible  thing  in  its  empirical  concreteness.  It  is 

llbid.,  §  163,  lecture-note  (2). 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  99 

abstract  also,  because  the  Notion  falls  short  of  the  Idea.  To  this 
extent  the  Subjective  Notion  is  still  formal.  This  however  does 
not  mean  that  it  ought  to  have  or  receive  another  content  than 
its  own.  It  is  itself  the  absolute  form,  and  so  is  all  specific  charac- 
ter, but  as  that  character  is  in  its  truth.  Although  it  be  abstract 
therefore,  it  is  the  concrete,  concrete  altogether,  the  subject  as 
such.  .  .  .  What  are  called  notions,  and  in  fact  specific  notions, 
such  as  man,  house,  animal,  etc.,  are  simply  denotations  and 
abstract  representations.  These  abstractions  retain  out  of  all 
the  functions  of  the  Notion  only  that  of  universality;  they  leave 
particularity  and  individuality  out  of  account  and  have  no  devel- 
opment in  these  directions.  By  so  doing  they  just  miss  the 
Notion."1  These  passages  are  found  at  the  very  beginning  of  the 
discussion  of  the  Subjective  Notion.  At  the  end  of  this  dis- 
cussion we  read:  "To  say  that  the  Notion  is  subjective  and  sub- 
jective only,  is  so  far  quite  correct:  for  the  Notion  certainly  is 
subjectivity  itself.  .  .  .  But  we  may  go  a  step  further.  This 
subjectivity,  with  its  functions  of  notion,  judgment,  and  syl- 
logism, is  not  like  a  set  of  empty  compartments  which  has  to  get 
filled  from  without  by  separately  existing  objects.  It  would  be 
truer  to  say  that  it  is  subjectivity  itself  which,  as  dialectical, 
breaks  through  its  own  barriers  and  opens  out  into  objectivity 
by  means  of  the  syllogism."2  The  Subjective  Notion,  therefore, 
is  not  merely  subjective ;  it  is  not  a  bare  concept  of  formal  logic 
that  has  only  a  psychological  existence  in  some  knowing  con- 
sciousness. On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  life  of  the  objects  them- 
selves, and  is  implicitly  that  which,  when  made  explicit,  becomes 
the  Idea.3 

If,  then,  we  are  right  in  arguing  that  the  real  must  conform 
itself  to  the  Notion,  and  if  the  Notion  is,  when  fully  expressed,  the 
individual,  it  seems  to  follow  that  the  real  must  assume  the  form 
of  the  individual.  And  this  appears  to  be  Hegel's  position  as  we 
find  it  expressed  in  the  third  part  of  the  Logic.  So  our  conclusion, 
which  we  before  reached  more  or  less  indirectly,  is  based  directly 
upon  the  dialectical  development  of  the  Logic. 

llbid.,  §  164.  zlbid.,  §  192,  lecture-note. 

3"  Transition  into  something  else  is  the  dialectical  process  within  the  range  of 
Being:  reflection  (bringing  something  else  into  light),  in  the  range  of  Essence.  The 
movement  of  the  Notion  is  development:  by  which  that  only  is  explicit  which  is 
already  implicitly  present."  (Enc.,  §  161,  lecture-note.) 


100        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

Professor  Pringle-Pattison  has  criticised  Hegel  for  disparag- 
ing the  individual,  and  that  criticism  must  be  examined  here. 
It  is  based  upon  the  following  passage  from  the  smaller  Logic: 
"Sensible  existence  has  been  characterized  by  the  attributes  of 
individuality  and  mutual  exclusion  of  the  members.  It  is  well 
to  remember  that  these  very  attributes  of  sense  are  thoughts  and 
general  terms.  .  .  .  Language  is  the  work  of  thought :  and  hence 
all  that  is  expressed  in  language  must  be  universal.  .  .  .  And  what 
cannot  be  uttered,  feeling  or  sensation,  far  from  being  the  highest 
truth,  is  the  most  unimportant  or  untrue.  If  I  say  'the  unit,' 
'this  unit,'  'here,'  'now,'  all  these  are  universal  terms.  Every- 
thing and  anything  is  an  individual,  a  'this,'  or  if  it  be  sensible, 
is  here  and  now.  Similarly,  when  I  say  'I,'  I  mean  my  single  self, 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  others;  but  what  I  say,  viz.,  'I,'  is  just 
every  other  'I,'  which  in  like  manner  excludes  all  others  from 
itself.  .  .  .  All  other  men  have  it  in  common  with  me  to  be  'I. '  "* 
Commenting  on  this  passage,  the  critic  says:  "This  demonstra- 
tion of  the  universal,  or,  to  put  it  perhaps  more  plainly,  the 
abstract  nature  of  thought,  even  in  the  case  of  those  terms 
which  seem  to  lay  most  immediate  hold  upon  reality,  is  both 
true  and  useful  in  its  own  place.  But  the  legitimate  conclusion 
from  it  in  the  present  connection  is  not  Hegel's  insinuated  dis- 
paragement of  the  individual,  but  rather  that  which  Tredelen- 
burg  draws  from  the  very  same  considerations,  that  the  indi- 
vidual, as  such,  is  incommensurable  or  unapproachable  by 
thought.2  Or,  as  Mr.  Bradley  puts  it  still  more  roundly  and 
trenchantly3  'The  real  is  inaccessible  by  way  of  ideas.  .  .  .  We 
escape  from  ideas,  and  from  mere  universals,  by  a  reference  to 
the  real  which  appears  in  perception.' ' 

Now  it  seems  to  me  unfair  to  charge  Hegel  here  with  dis- 
paragement of  the  individual.  In  the  passage  in  question  he 
has  in  mind  discrete  parts  of  experience,  unorganized  elements  of 
sensuous  perception ;  and  it  is  these  abstract  sensations  and  feel- 
ings that  he  calls  'unimportant  and  untrue.'  He  does,  indeed, 
in  the  same  section  speak  of  individuality  as  the  essential  feature 
of  sense-experience;  but  that  he  means  by  this  nothing  more 

lEnc.,  §  20.     Quoted  in  Hegelianism  and  Personality,  p.  137. 
2Logische  Untersuchungen,  Bd.  II,  p.  230. 
^Principles  of  Logic,  pp.  63,  69. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  IOI 

than  that  "sensible  existence  presents  a  number  of  mutually 
exclusive  units,"  he  himself  is  at  pains  to  tell  us.  So  it  would 
appear  that  the  disparagement  is  of  the  isolated  particular  and 
not  of  the  individual.  According  to  Hegel,  it  is  not  the  indi- 
vidual which  is  the  'unutterable';  for  the  very  form  of  the  judg- 
ment is  the  individual,  it  is  essentially  'a  universal  which  is 
individualized.'1  The  isolated,  unrelated  elements  of  abstract 
sense-perception  and  conception,  these  it  is  to  which  Hegel  refuses 
to  give  any  ultimate  significance;  for  such  discrete  particulars 
are  essentially  unreal.  And  in  this  position  Hegel  differs  little 
from  his  critic.2 

The  real  import  of  the  section  from  which  the  above  quotation 
is  taken  seems  to  be  implied  at  least  in  a  sentence  of  the  passage 
which  Professor  Pringle-Pattison  fails  to  quote.  The  sentence 
runs  thus:  "It  will  be  shown  in  the  Logic  that  thought  (and  the 
universal)  is  not  a  mere  opposite  of  sense:  it  lets  nothing  escape 
it,  but,  outflanking  its  other,  is  at  once  that  other  and  itself." 
By  this  I  understand  Hegel  to  mean  that  he  is  to  show  in  the 
Logic  that  thought  is  involved  in  sense-perception,  that  thought 
is  a  principle  which,  as  he  tells  us  in  the  very  last  sentence  of 
the  paragraph  from  which  we  have  quoted,  runs  through  all 
"sensations,  conceptions,  and  states  of  consciousness."  And 
from  this  it  would  follow  that  even  sense-experience  is  universal- 
ized, and  to  regard  this  experience  as  composed  of  discreet  units 
is  really  to  regard  it  abstractly.  That,  it  would  seem,  is  what 
Hegel  points  out  in  the  section  under  discussion.  It  is  the  un- 
related which  is  unutterable,  because  the  universals  of  thought 
cannot  get  hold  of  it  to  express  it.  But  the  unrelated  is  not  the 
individual,  and  one  does  not  see  how  it  could  be  the  real.  At 
all  events,  Hegel  seems  free  from  the  charge  of  disparaging  the 
individual  here,  meaning  by  the  individual  the  universalized 
particular.  It  is  just  upon  the  individual  that  he  is  laying  the 
emphasis,  as  against  the  doctrine  of  discrete  particularity. 

The  doctrine  of  Hegel's  critics  that  the  individual  is  unap- 
proachable by  way  of  ideas  is  a  position  which  itself  demands 
examination.  In  the  first  place,  it  seems  to  rest  upon  the  doc- 

lEnc.,  §  167. 

2See  Professor  Pringle-Pattison's  emphatic  words  on  this  point  in  Scottish 
Philosophy,  p.  170. 


102         THOUGHT  AND   REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

trine  that  ideas,  or  categories,  can  be  nothing  but  principles  of 
cognition,  that  the  assertion  of  the  intelligibility  of  reality  in 
terms  of  thought  limits  us  to  the  mechanical  categories  (the 
categories  of  the  sciences  which  have  to  do  with  factual  existence) 
in  our  efforts  to  interpret  reality.  Now  this  doctrine  is  not  self- 
evidently  true,  and  should  be  tested  as  to  its  validity.  Of  course 
if  it  be  true,  we  must  admit  at  once  that  thought  is  not  an  ade- 
quate expression  of  reality;  for  we  must  all  agree  with  Professor 
Royce  that  "individuality  ...  is  a  category  indefinable  in 
purely  theoretical  terms."1  But  is  it  true?  According  to  Hegel's 
doctrine  of  thought  it  is  not  true;  Hegel's  thought  includes  cate- 
gories of  value  as  well  as  those  of  factual  existence,  and  so  he 
insists  that  the  individual  is  expressible  in  terms  of  categories, 
though  not  necessarily  the  categories  of  pure  cognition.  Whether 
or  not  Hegel's  doctrine  of  thought  is  true  to  the  facts  of  experience 
we  have  tried  to  determine  in  the  first  Part  of  our  study. 

In  the  second  place,  this  position  involves  a  mistaken  epis- 
temological  principle.  Baldly  stated,  it  is  that  the  uniqueness 
of  reality  consists  in  its  transcending  knowledge.  Mr.  Bradley 
puts  the  position  thus:  "It  is  not  by  its  quality,  as  a  temporal 
event  or  phenomenon  of  space,  that  the  given  is  unique.  It  is 
unique,  not  because  it  has  a  certain  character,  but  because  it  is 
given."2  The  question  naturally  arises  whether  this  statement 
actually  agrees  with  the  facts.  One  is  inclined  to  dispute  that 
it  does.  At  any  rate,  the  unique  in  this  sense  is  certainly  not 
synonymous  with  the  term  as  it  is  commonly  used.  Let  us  take 
one  or  two  examples.  What  is  a  unique  invention?  Popularly, 
it  is  an  invention  that  has  properties  and  characteristics  different 
from  others  of  its  class.  But  certainly  its  uniqueness  is  not 
thought  of  as  consisting  in  the  fact  that  the  invention  is  in- 
explicable; if  it  were  inexplicable,  it  would  be  simply  a  mystery 
and  not  anything  unique  at  all.  Suppose  it  were  an  intricate 
machine,  which  none  but  the  man  trained  in  mechanics  could 
understand.  Would  it  then  be  truly  unique  for  anyone  save 
the  mechanician?  It  would  seem  that  an  invention  is  unique 
in  terms  of  its  peculiar  properties  and  attributes,  which  must  be 
known  and  appreciated  as  such;  it  is  of  such  a  known  nature 

Conception  of  God,  p.  258.  ^Principles  of  Logic,  p.  64. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  103 

that  it  differs  from  all  other  creations  of  mechanical  genius. 
And  the  more  intelligibly  one  succeeds  in  differentiating  it  from 
other  such  creations,  the  more  clearly  denned  does  its  uniqueness 
become.  This  same  fact  may  be  illustrated  by  the  example  of  a 
unique  personality.  A  person  is  unique  only  in  so  far  as  he 
differs  from  others,  and  he  differs  from  others  only  because  of 
certain  positive  characteristics  that  make  him  different.  The 
assertion,  "Ben  is  a  unique  character,"  is,  I  dare  say,  a  rather 
meaningless  jumble  of  words;  naturally,  we  must  know  more 
about  Ben  before  we  can  appreciate  his  uniqueness.  But  "O 
rare  Ben  Jonson!"  is  an  exclamation  of  genuine  significance. 
What  is  the  difference  in  the  two  cases?  Is  it  not  simply  that 
in  the  latter  our  knowledge  has  something  to  attach  to  itself  to, 
while  in  the  former  knowledge  can  get  no  foothold?  And  is  it 
not  permissible  to  argue  that  the  more  one  knows  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  Ben  Jonson,  the  more  determinate  and  impressive 
grows  the  uniqueness  of  his  individuality?  Doubtless,  in  the 
minds  of  his  associates  and  companions  in  the  Mermaid  the 
eccentricities  of  his  genius  were  much  more  marked  than  they 
can  be  to  us,  assuming,  of  course,  that  the  man  was  more  fully 
known  by  personal  contact  with  him.  So  it  seems  that  the  person, 
like  the  invention,  is  unique  only  because  he  possesses  positive 
characteristics  that  make  him  unique;  and  apart  from  such 
positive  characteristics  uniqueness  is  lacking. 

Now  from  the  epistemological  point  of  view,  what  does  this 
amount  to?  Simply,  I  think,  to  the  conclusion  that  uniqueness, 
individuality,  is  to  be  measured  in  terms  of  knowledge,  not  of 
ignorance.  Before  an  object  can  be  unique,  it  certainly  must  be 
self-identical;  and  the  more  completely  self-identical  it  becomes, 
the  more  emphasized  does  its  individuality  appear.  Now  the 
vaguest  self-identity  implies  reference  beyond  self;  and  apart 
from  this  reference  to  others  self-identity  is  impossible.  But 
reference  beyond  self  is  relation,  and  relations  are  categories. 
Thus  it  would  seem  that  the  unique  not  only  does  not  exclude 
categories,  but,  on  the  contrary,  depends  upon  them  for  its  very 
existence.  It  is  only  when  an  object  is  fully  known  to  be  itself, 
that  is,  when  it  is  seen  to  differ  determinately  from  others  of  its 
class,  that  it  may  legitimately  be  termed  unique.  Apart  from 


104        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

universality  individuality  is  a  fiction.  Thus  the  individual  gets 
its  uniqueness  by  being  defined.  That  is  unique  which  is  seen 
to  be  itself,  and  only  that  which  possesses  attributes  and  qualities 
peculiar  to  itself  can  be  differentiated  from  others.  Of  course 
an  object  may  be  negatively  defined,  that  is,  as  not  something 
else;  but  in  order  that  such  a  definition  have  significance,  it 
must  give  us  positive  knowledge  of  what  we  are  negatively  de- 
fining. For  if  the  object  of  interest  is  not  some  other  object, 
then  the  judgment  of  difference  is  based  upon  positive  attributes 
which  make  its  being  the  other  object  impossible;  otherwise, 
there  would  be  no  sense  in  asserting  the  difference.  In  opposi- 
tion to  Mr.  Bradley,  therefore,  we  must  argue  that  the  'given' 
is  unique,  not  because  it  is  given,  but  just  because  it  possesses  a 
certain  character.  No  brute  fact  is,  as  such,  unique;  it  is  a 
meaning  for  us,  or  it  is  nothing.  The  uniqueness  of  reality  is 
to  be  found  only  in  its  determinate  character,  not  in  its  indeter- 
minate factual  existence.1 

A  final  objection  to  the  position  that  reality  is  unapproachable 
by  thought  emerges  from  the  preceding  discussion.  Is  it  not 
logically  impossible  for  those  who  maintain  that  the  real  is  inacces- 
sible by  way  of  ideas  to  assume  the  position  that  the  real  is  indi- 
vidual? Are  not  these  two  contentions  contradictory?  The  diffi- 
culty will  be  apparent  from  the  following  considerations.  If  the 
real  is  given  us  independently  of  thought  and  apart  from  its 
activity,  then  one  would  think  that  it  must  be  represented  only  in 
the  form  of  particularity.  For,  as  Professor  Bosanquet  has  re- 
minded us,  that  which  is  supposed  to  come  to  us  through  abstract 
sense  perception  could  come  only  as  the  unrelated  particular ;  for 
the  essence  of  sense  is  isolation.  Feeling,  uncontaminated  by 
thought,  stands  on  the  same  level  with  the  senses  in  this  respect.2 
Hegel  himself  has  pointed  out  that  what  I  feel  is  only  mine, 

*As  I  understand  Hegel,  this  is  just  the  principle  upon  which  he  is  insisting 
when  he  makes  immediacy  and  mediation  conterminous.  For  him  there  is  no 
•given' :  a  bare  fact,  or  datum,  is  as  pure  an  abstraction  as  is  the  unrelated  particular 
with  which  he  would  identify  it.  See  here  Professor  Sabine,  "The  Concreteness 
of  Thought,"  The  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  XVI,  pp.  155-156. 

2Mr.  McTaggart  looks  for  the  synthesis  in  emotion  as  opposed  to  feeling  (Studies 
in  Hegelian  Cosmology,  §§  282  ff.).  But  this  seems  hardly  to  meet  the  difficulty — 
that  is,  if  you  abstract  emotion  from  its  rational  principle  of  unity;  for  such  abstract 
emotion  could  hardly  furnish  us  with  the  synthesis  for  which  we  are  seeking. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  105 

belongs  peculiarly  and  exclusively  to  me,  and,  as  mere  feeling, 
must  forever  remain  bound  down  to  subjectivity,  to  bare  par- 
ticularity. But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  individual 
necessarily  implies  some  form  of  universality.  And  the  question 
at  once  arises,  Whence  does  it  get  this  form?  If  the  assertion 
that  has  just  been  made  of  the  senses  and  the  feelings  be  true, 
as  experience  seems  to  teach  that  it  is  true,  then  universality 
cannot  be  produced  by  them;  untouched  by  thought,  they  give 
and  can  give  only  the  particular.  But  if  the  universal  character 
of  the  individual  is  the  gift  of  thought,  what  justification  can 
there  be  for  the  statement  that  the  individual  is  unapproachable 
by  thought?  The  contention  seems  to  ignore  the  very  process 
by  which  the  result  has  come  to  be.  Thus  there  seems  to  be  a 
fundamental  difficulty  in  the  position  which  argues  that  the  real 
is  essentially  beyond  thought,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  insists 
that  the  individual,  and  only  the  individual,  is  the  real.1 

This  difficulty  may  be  accentuated  by  a  somewhat  detailed 
study  of  the  inconsistencies  that  appear  in  Professor  Baillie's 
criticism  of  Hegel  as  quoted  above.  The  digression,  if  it  be  a 
digression  into  which  we  shall  thus  be  led,  will  perhaps  throw 
some  light  on  Hegel's  position  by  utilizing  his  principles  in  criti- 
cism of  a  position  antagonistic  to  his  own. 

It  is  quite  easy  to  see  that  Professor  Baillie's  criticism  is  vitally 
bound  up  with  the  assumption  that  the  real  immediacy  of  ex- 
perience cannot  be  mediated,  and,  consequently,  lies  beyond 
thought.2  But  it  is  not  easy  to  see  just  what  is  meant  by  such 
an  immediacy.  Sometimes  it  is  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  the  imme- 
diacy of  sense-perception:  for  example,  we  are  told  that  "wher- 
ever we  have  an  object  present  to  the  subject,  there  we  have 
immediacy."  At  other  times,  however,  one  is  led  to  believe 
that  the  immediacy  of  reality  is  the  unattainable  goal  of  thought 
rather  than  its  given  point  of  departure.  "Knowledge  is  not 
construction  but  reconstruction  of  Experience.  .  .  .  Experience 
again,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  compact  and  inexhaustible 

*It  might  be  well  for  those  who  uphold  the  doctrine  that  is  here  objected  to 
if  they  would  study  more  carefully  the  Transcendental  Deduction  of  the  Categories 
in  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason.  Kant's  one  lesson  there  is  that  the  categories  are 
essential  to  immediate  experience. 

2Cf.  Hegel's  Logic,  pp.  340  ff .  for  the  criticism  and  the  passages  here  cited. 


106        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

mine  of  fact  to  which  knowledge  ever  recurs,  which  it  seeks  to 
fathom,  .  .  .  the  reproduction  of  which  in  its  immediacy  may 
be  said  to  be  its  aim."  But  in  either  case,  whether  the  immediacy 
of  reality  be  the  first  given  from  which  thought  can  be  only  a 
process  of  abstraction,  or  the  ideal  towards  which  thought  is  an 
endless  and  essentially  futile  process  of  approximation,  the  con- 
clusion that  forces  itself  upon  us  is  the  same.  And  that  conclu- 
sion is  that  the  immediacy  of  experience,  that  immediacy  which 
is  reality,  is  of  such  a  nature  that  thought  is  necessarily  excluded 
from  it;  it  is  an  immediacy  with  which  the  categories  of  knowl- 
edge have  absolutely  nothing  to  do.  "The  immediate  in  Experi- 
ence, that  immediate  which  is  reality,  is  absolutely  continuous 
with  itself  and  admits  of  isolation  in  no  sense  whatever;  the 
immediacy  is  indissoluble,  otherwise  Experience  simply  ceases 
to  be.  This  single  immediacy  of  Experience  we  simply  cannot 
have  in  knowledge ;  if  so  knowledge  would  not  be  knowledge  but 
Experience."  "The  complete  realization  of  the  nature  of  the 
Absolute  must  remain  for  knowledge  even  at  its  best  an  impossible 
achievement."1 

Now  I  venture  to  submit:  (a)  that  such  an  immediate  experi- 
ence as  Professor  Baillie  here  identifies  with  reality  is  not  possible ; 
and  (b)  that,  if  it  were  possible,  it  could  at  most  be  but  sub- 
jective and  particular.  Let  us  begin  with  the  first  of  these  con- 
tentions. 

(a)  All  that  has  been  said  above  concerning  the  impossibility 
of  construing  the  uniqueness  of  the  'given'  in  terms  of  its  merely 
factual  aspect  is  applicable  here.  For  what  is  this  immediate 
experience  but  such  an  indeterminate  'given,'  whose  individuality 
consists  in  the  fact  that  it  is  so  given?  And  what  is  such  a 
unique  given  but  a  contradictio  in  adjecto?  That  which  is  merely 
given  cannot  possibly  be  unique,  for  it  has  no  relations  in  terms 
of  which  its  uniqueness  is  to  be  defined.  The  given  is  not  in 
experience  until  it  is  at  least  recognized  as  a  permanent  somewhat 
which  is  itself  and  not  something  else ;  but  when  it  is  so  recog- 
nized, it  is  no  longer  a  merely  indeterminate  given.  Experience 
certainly  involves  more  than  bare  abstract  fact. 

To  this  may  be  added  the  following  considerations.     The  only 

llbid.,  p.  373. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  107 

experience  about  which  we  know  anything  seems  to  possess  at 
least  a  degree  of  unity.  Life  is  at  any  rate  livable,  society  does 
actually  exist,  and  its  many  chaotic  aspects  cannot  blind  us  to 
the  orderly  character  of  its  being.  Not  even  the  simplest  act 
of  sense-perception,  not  to  mention  the  more  complex  processes 
of  intellectual  and  social  activity,  would  be  possible  were  there 
no  unity  within  experience.  But  unity  implies  a  unifying  prin- 
ciple, and  the  unitary  whole  gets  its  significance  only  as  it  is 
construed  in  the  light  of  this  principle.  What  makes  of  experi- 
ence a  unity?  Can  the  organic  nature  of  experience  be  explained 
in  terms  of  the  senses,  or  the  feelings,  or  the  will?  If  in  terms  of 
the  first,  how  refute  the  Sophists?  If  in  terms  of  the  second, 
how  refute  the  mystics?  If  in  terms  of  the  third,  how  refute 
Schopenhauer?  Is  it  not  true  that  experience  is  a  unity  only 
by  virtue  of  its  principle  of  rationality;  and  that  if  any  part 
of  experience  transcends  or  falls  without  this  principle,  it,  by 
that  very  fact,  ceases  to  be  aus  einem  Stiicke?  The  very  concep- 
tion of  a  unified  experience  would  seem  to  necessitate  the  assump- 
tion that  in  its  lowest  and  vaguest  stages,  as  well  as  in  its  highest 
and  sublimest  reaches,  its  universal  principle  is  active;  and  what 
this  universal  principle  is  seems  to  be  a  question  that  hardly 
admits  of  debate  when  once  it  is  clearly  put.  Now  if  such  are 
the  implications  of  experience,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  meaning 
can  be  given  to  Professor  Baillie's  immediate  experience  from 
which  every  rational  category  is  excluded.  In  point  of  fact,  it 
seems  to  be  too  immediate  to  be  experienced  and  so  is  essentially 
meaningless.  Whatever  is  in  experience  unquestionably  must 
be  experienced;  but  how  anything  can  be  experienced  without 
somehow  being  known,  that  is,  without  at  least  being  recognized 
as  itself  and  so  being  subjected  to  a  category,  it  is  not  easy  to 
understand.  That  which  by  its  very  nature  is  incapable  of  being 
represented  in  consciousness  cannot  enter  into  the  realm  of  possible 
experience ;  and  to  speak  of  an  immediate  experience  that  cannot 
be  experienced  seems  to  amount  to  an  absurdity.  Therefore 
it  would  seem  that  Professor  Baillie's  conception  of  an  immediate 
experience,  beyond  the  categories  of  knowledge,  must  be  given  up; 
it  is  nothing  more  than  a  mere  phantom,  a  contradiction  in  terms.1 

aStudents  of  Kant  will  see  here  simply  an  attempt  to  apply  the  lesson  of  the 
Transcendental  Deduction. 


108         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

(b)  But,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  let  us  grant  the  possi- 
bility of  this  experience  in  which  thought  can  play  no  part. 
What  is  the  predicament  in  which  we  find  ourselves?  Simply, 
I  think,  confined  within  the  realm  of  abstract  particularity.  For 
in  what  does  that  experience  which  lies  beyond  thought  consist, 
if  not  in  an  unrelated  series  of  meaningless  sense-perceptions,  or 
of  incoherent  feelings,  or  of  blind  volitions?  And  what  can  such 
a  series  be  but  a  disconnected  array  of  discrete  particulars?  It 
is,  of  course,  difficult  to  speculate  concerning  the  nature  of  that 
which  does  not  and  cannot  exist.  But  concerning  this  experience 
with  which  we  are  here  attempting  to  deal,  we  may  be  sure  of  this, 
that,  whatever  else  may  or  may  not  be  true  of  it,  it  certainly 
cannot  be  objective  and  universal  in  any  intelligible  sense  of 
those  words.  The  essence  of  abstract  sense  is  isolation  and  par- 
ticularity, and  feeling  and  volition,  qua  abstract  feeling  and 
volition,  are  entirely  subjective  and  can  be  experienced  by  no 
one  under  the  sun  save  the  subject  who  psychologically  possesses 
them.  How,  then,  can  these  abstractions  be  called  universal, 
and  how  could  an  experience  made  up  exclusively  of  them  be,  in 
any  sense  whatever,  objective?  To  put  the  question  is  to  answer 
it.  And  the  question,  candidly  faced,  would  seem  to  drive  us  to 
the  conclusion  that  an  experience  that  lies  beyond  the  categories 
of  rationality  must  assume  the  form  of  unrelated  particularity. 

The  prejudice,  however,  will  not  easily  down.  There  must 
be  a  datum  of  experience  which  is  just  eternally  there,  and  about 
which  nothing  more  can  be  said.  It  forever  eludes  our  grasp 
when  we  attempt  to  seize  it  by  thinking  it;  but  no  sane  person 
can  deny  its  existence.  Is  not  this  datum  given  entirely  in- 
dependently of  thought's  activity?  And  yet  can  it  be  denied  that 
it  comes  to  us,  no  matter  how,  as  a  part  of  our  experience?  Have 
we  not  here,  then,  an  immediate  experience  which  is  more  than 
an  unrelated  particular,  and  which,  nevertheless,  is  entirely  be- 
yond the  categories  of  thought?  Everybody  experiences  the 
given,  and  yet  its  immediacy  cannot  appear  in  knowledge.  How 
does  this  very  obvious  fact  square  with  the  above  assertions 
concerning  the  inherent  absurdity  of  an  immediate  experience 
beyond  thought? 

In  the  first  place,  attention  should  be  directed  here  to  a  ques- 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  109 

tion  of  fact.  One  seems  forced  to  point  out  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  is  no  fixed  'datum'  of  experience.  The  so-called 
'given'  differs  for  different  individuals  and  for  the  same  individual 
at  different  times.  In  a  very  important  sense  that  which  is 
given  depends  upon  the  purposes  and  intellectual  attainments 
of  the  one  to  whom  it  is  given ;  and  no  one  can  doubt  that  such 
a  basis  is  relative  and  is  constantly  changing.  To  the  hard- 
pressed  Richard  on  the  battlefield  the  same  horse  would  have 
been  more  of  a  reality  by  far  than  to  the  lazy  beggar  of  Mother 
Goose  renown;  and  the  small  boy,  bent  on  mischief,  actually 
sees  in  the  stone  at  his  feet  characteristics  quite  different  from 
what  might  appear  to  the  eyes  of  the  trained  geologist.  Other 
illustrations  of  this  fact  will  suggest  themselves.  Of  course  this 
contention  will  not  be  misconstrued  to  mean  that  any  phantasm 
that  may  chance  to  run  through  the  mind  actually  does,  for 
that  reason,  have  a  place  in  existential  reality,  that  the  subject 
creates  perceptual  experience.  I  certainly  do  not  wish  to  mini- 
mize the  factual  aspect  of  experience.  The  point  upon  which 
emphasis  is  here  intended  to  be  placed  is  that  the  'given,'  apart 
from  an  experiencing  subject,  is  a  blank  abstraction,  and  that  in 
relation  to  an  experiencing  subject  it  is  more  than  a  mere  'given.' 
The  confusion  upon  which  this  doctrine  of  the  'given'  rests  is 
this:  the  object  side  of  experience  is  taken  from  its  context 
and  then  opposed  to  that  experience  as  something  standing  over 
against  it  and  independent  of  it.  Berkeley  has  long  since  pointed 
out  the  fallacy  here.  In  this  discussion  it  is  necessary  for  us  to 
rid  our  minds  of  this  confusion.  As  Professor  Bosanquet  sums 
up  the  point:  "The  given  and  its  extension  differ  not  absolutely 
but  relatively;  they  are  continuous  with  each  other,  and  the 
metaphor  by  which  we  speak  of  an  extension  conceals  from  us 
that  the  so-called  'given'  is  no  less  artificial  than  that  by  which 
it  is  extended."1 

In  the  second  place,  this  insistence  upon  the  'given'  lands  us  in 
insurmountable  difficulties.  However  the  position  is  stated,  so 
long  as  the  immediate  experience  is  too  immediate  for  the  cate- 
gories of  thought,  it  seems  open  to  the  above  fatal  objection  that 
it  must  forever  remain  particular  and  subjective.  To  say  that 

1Logic,  Vol.  I,  p.  ??• 


HO        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

reality  is  found  in  a  pure  indeterminate  datum,  an  unaccountable 
residuum  of  being,  is  to  open  the  way  for  an  influx  of  problems 
similar  to  those  produced  by  Aristotle's  abstract  separation  of 
form  from  matter,  or  by  Kant's  differentiation  between  the  ex- 
perienced phenomenon  and  its  reality.  It  matters  not  that  the 
datum  is  thought  of  as  the  material  out  of  which  the  universals 
of  knowledge  are  manufactured,  or  in  which  thought  somehow 
finds  the  problems  that  determine  its  activity;  the  difficulties 
still  remain.  How  the  universals  of  thought  are  manufactured 
out  of  that  which  is  confined  to  discreet  particularity  is  not  easily 
discovered.  Nor  can  one  see  at  a  glance  how  that  which  lies 
beyond  thought  can  really  set  a  problem  for  thought.  If  our 
world  were  such,  one  is  inclined  to  think  with  Professor  Royce 
that  it  would  be  "too  much  of  a  blind  problem  for  us  even  to  be 
puzzled  by  its  meaningless  presence."1  Those  who  insist  upon 
such  an  immediate  experience  should  show  by  what  right  they 
appeal  to  the  individual  as  the  real,  and  by  what  reasoning  they 
succeed  in  transcending  abstract  particularity  within  this  experi- 
ence. For  there  is  certainly  a  difficulty  here,  and  one  that  seems 
to  be  sufficiently  weighty  to  cause  the  position  to  be,  if  not 
entirely  abandoned,  at  least  essentially  modified. 

But  Professor  Baillie  may  possibly  object  that,  so  far  as  he  is 
concerned,  all  this  is  beside  the  mark.  He  may  assert  that  he  has 
no  thought  of  equating  reality  with  an  unchangeable  datum  of 
experience,  or  with  the  abstract  particular.  His  main  contention, 
he  may  urge,  is  that  reality  cannot  be  exhausted  by  thought; 
thought  is  about  reality,  but  cannot  exhaust  reality.  The  notions 
are  not  the  reality  of  things,  "for  these  are  individual,  and  a 
notion,  however  concrete,  is  ...  always  a  notion,  i.  e.,  a  univer- 
sal."2 Reality,  then,  is  not  a  chaotic  state  of  immediacy,  as  has 
been  represented  in  the  discussion  above;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
a  unique  whole  which,  on  account  of  its  very  uniqueness,  lies 
beyond  the  possibility  of  the  universals  of  thought.  It  is  not  the 
starting-point  from  which  thought  abstracts,  but  the  goal  at 
which  it  aims — a  goal,  however,  essentially  beyond  it.  In  a  word, 
the  objector  may  say,  not  abstract  unrelatedness  but  an  organic 
unity  that  is  super-rational — such  is  the  immediacy  of  that  which 
may  be  called  the  reaL 

lThe  World  and  the  Individual,  first  series,  pp.  55-56.          2Hegel's  Logic,  p.  348. 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  Ill 

This  objection,  however,  does  not  in  the  least  change  the 
situation.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  the  'immediate'  is 
the  indeterminate  given  of  sense-perception  with  which  thought 
works,  or  the  unattainable  ideal  towards  which  thought  strives; 
from  the  logical  point  of  view  the  two  positions  are  one  and  the 
same,  and  a  justifiable  criticism  of  the  one  holds  of  the  other  also. 
On  this  point  Professor  Baillie  stands  condemned  by  his  own 
words:  "If  reality  is  in  any  sense  beyond  knowledge  it  is  of  no 
importance  where,  in  the  history  of  knowledge,  the  separation 
is  made.  To  make  knowledge  bear  an  essentially  asymptotic 
relation  to  reality  is  in  principle  precisely  the  same  as  to  separate 
knowledge  and  reality  absolutely  from  the  start.  The  only  dif- 
ference is  that  the  former  puts  the  separation  far  away  at  infinity 
— 'reality  cannot  be  exhausted  by  thought' ;  the  latter  plants  it 
down  at  our  feet — 'reality  is  outside  knowledge.'  But  this  is  a 
difference  which  is  unimportant  and  meaningless:  unimportant, 
since  in  both  cases  reality  is  beyond  us,  and  the  question  of 
'when'  it  becomes  so  does  not  concern  knowledge:  meaningless, 
since  in  both  cases  we  can  never  say  when  knowledge  actually 
has  failed;  the  beyond  is  always  a  beyond  in  either  case.  The 
position  referred  to"  (that  is,  the  position  expressed  by  Lotze, 
for  example,  when  he  asserts  that  'reality  is  richer  than  thought') 
"is  therefore  rooted  in  dualism,  in  spite  of  the  apparent  concession 
of  the  worth  of  knowledge  up  to  a  certain  point.  For  it  must 
accept  the  alternative:  either  knowledge  does  give  the  nature 
of  reality,  in  which  case  the  question  of  amount  and  the  time  it 
takes  to  exhaust  it  is  of  no  significance,  since  the  nature  of  reality 
is  explicitly  known  and  implicitly  cognizable;  or  there  is  at  the 
outset  a  fundamental  cleavage  between  the  two,  in  which  case  at 
no  point  does  knowledge  give  reality."1  And  if  this  be  true,  we 
are  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  acknowledging  that  the  separation 
between  knowledge  and  reality,  wherever  the  separation  may 
appear,  leads  us  into  the  difficulties  of  an  indeterminate  imme- 
diacy of  experience. 

lAn  Idealistic  Construction  of  Experience,  pp.  67-68.  It  will  be  noticed  that  this 
passage  is  a  very  telling  criticism  of  the  point  of  view  advocated  in  the  entire  last 
chapter  of  Hegel's  Logic;  and,  if  the  one  is  true,  it  would  seem  that  the  other  must 
be  false.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  the  author  has  passed  over  this  contradiction  in 
silence. 


112         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

As  Hegel  views  the  matter,  the  way  out  of  these  difficulties  is 
exactly  the  reverse  of  the  way  in.  We  must  define  reality  not 
as  Substance  but  as  Subject.  That  is  to  say,  the  real  must  be 
conceived  of  not  as  an  indefinable  somewhat  about  which  nothing 
more  can  logically  be  said  than  that  it  just  eternally  is  but  as  a 
thoroughly  comprehensible  system  whose  nature  is  expressed  in 
its  internal  rational  organization.  Even  granting  that  the  cate- 
gories which  are  adequate  to  its  nature  may  be  read  in  terms  of 
sense-perception,  or  of  blind  will,  or  of  pure  cognition,  or  of 
abstract  feeling,  still  we  must  say,  if  we  are  not  to  talk  mere 
nonsense,  that  the  immediacy  of  the  real  is  the  result  of  some  sort 
of  mediation  and  is  intelligible  by  means  of  certain  categories 
which  actually  do  express  its  essential  nature.1  But  sense-per- 
ception, blind  will,  pure  cognition,  mere  feeling,  have  no  cate- 
gories to  offer  us  for  the  unification  of  experience:  the  true  uni- 
versal runs  through  them  all,  and  it  is  the  one  reason  which  is 
the  life  of  experience.  Such  is  Hegel's  doctrine,  and  he  insists 
that,  if  we  are  in  earnest  about  transcending  the  standpoint  of 
the  Critical  Philosophy,  that  is,  if  we  are  really  in  earnest  when 
we  deny  the  existence  of  a  reality  beyond  the  realm  of  possible 
experience,  we  must  admit  that  no  part  of  experience  presents 
the  enigmatic  aspect  of  a  mere  abstract  datum.  For  if  that  which 
is  real  is  an  indeterminate  immediacy,  an  indefinable  somewhat 
that  lies  beyond  thought,  wherein  does  it  differ  from  the  abstract 
particular  or  the  thing-in-itself,  or  what  earthly  connection  has 
it  with  actual  concrete  experience?  Those  who  champion  the 
position  ought  to  take  it  upon  themselves  to  remove  the  difficulty, 
and  to  point  out  in  what  respects  their  solution  differs  from 
Hegel's  own.2 

JIs  not  the  search  for  an  adequate  representation  of  the  nature  of  such  a  compre- 
hensible whole  the  task  of  philosophy?  And  if  such  a  task  is  inherently  impossible, 
is,  indeed,  absurd,  then  is  philosophy  worth  the  pains?  Seeking  an  ideal  which  is 
essentially  unattainable,  but  which,  were  it  miraculously  attained,  would  annihilate 
us,  seems  on  the  face  of  it  to  be  a  rather  profitless,  or  it  may  be  dangerous,  business ; 
chasing  the  rainbow  for  the  bag  of  gold  at  its  end  would  appeal  more  strongly  to 
the  timorous.  Hegel  humorously  remarks  that,  on  this  theory,  "thought  is  capable 
of  comprehending  one  thing  only,  its  incapacity  to  grasp  the  truth  and  see  into  it, 
and  of  proving  to  itself  its  own  nothingness,  with  the  result  that  suicide  is  its 
highest  vocation."  (Philosophy  of  Religion,  trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  161.) 

2See  Mr.  Bradley 's  statements  on  this  point  in  Appearance  and  Reality,  pp.  167  ff. 
Mr.  Bradley  and  Hegel  have  practically  the  same  ideas  on  the  problem,  the  differ- 


REALITY  AS  INDIVIDUAL.  113 

We  may  conclude  this  chapter  with  a  brief  summary  of  its 
main  contentions.  Hegel  equates  reality  with  experience,  and 
not  with  abstract  formal  knowledge  as  Professor  Baillie  and  Mr. 
McTaggart  seem  to  think.  When  he  asserts  that  the  immediacy 
of  reality  is  the  immediacy  of  science,  or  that  philosophy  exhausts 
the  nature  of  Spirit,  he  simply  means  to  say  that  reality  is  not 
an  insoluble  mystery,  but  is  essentially  an  ideal  construction, 
an  interpretation  and  organization  of  the  so-called  'given.'  The 
real  for  him,  therefore,  is  neither  the  abstract  particular  nor  the 
blank  universal;  it  is  the  universal  filled,  the  particular  made 
significant,  in  a  word,  the  individual.  And  the  position  that  the 
real  is  individual,  as  he  conceives  the  matter,  necessarily  involves 
the  admission  that  concrete  thought  is  no  less  extensive  than  the 
realm  of  concrete  experience.  For  if  any  part  of  experience  lies 
truly  beyond  thought,  it  seems  to  be  devoid  of  universal  charac- 
teristics and  so  differs  in  no  intelligible  sense  from  the  abstract 
particular;  and  it  is  the  validity  of  this  contention  that  he  would 
ask  the  upholders  of  the  'pure  experience'  theory  to  challenge. 
That  the  essential  nature  of  which  cannot  be  fully  expressed  in 
terms  of  knowledge  is  an  incomprehensible  datum  which,  by  vir- 
tue of  that  fact,  never  appears  in  concrete  experience.  And  exper- 
ience, organized  and  rationalized  experience,  and  reality  are  one. 

ence  being  that  Mr.  Bradley  insists  on  narrowing  the  term  thought  to  what  Hegel 
would  call  'finite'  thought.  Hegel  would  seem  to  have  the  advantage  over  Mr. 
Bradley  in  this  respect  at  least,  namely,  that  he  does  give  us  an  intelligible  unity  of 
reality  whereas  Mr.  Bradley  leaves  his  Absolute  in  a  rather  confused  and  chaotic 
condition.  And  one  is  inclined  to  suspect  that  Hegel's  advantage  emerges  from  this 
difference  in  doctrine  concerning  the  nature  of  thought. 


CHAPTER  V. 
THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE. 

Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  the  Absolute  is  a  problem 
that  is  not  easy  of  solution.  The  fact  that  the  Hegelians  of  the 
Left  and  of  the  Right,  while  appealing  to  the  authority  of  the 
master  in  justification  of  their  respective  positions,  reached  anti- 
thetical conclusions  with  reference  to  this  problem  is  an  indication 
of  its  difficulty.  But  the  result  that  we -have  already  attained 
in  the  preceding  chapter  offers  us  a  vantage-point  in  our  discus- 
sion of  the  problem.  We  have  shown  that  the  unity  of  reality, 
according  to  Hegel,  is  a  unity  that  includes  differences,  and  that 
the  differences  are  essential  to  the  unity.  This  point  will,  how- 
ever, be  of  more  direct  interest  to  us  when  we  come  to  ask  con- 
cerning the  relation  of  the  Absolute  and  its  differentiations.  The 
problem  immediately  before  us  is  to  determine  how  this  unity 
must  be  conceived,  what  more  specifically  the  nature  of  the 
unity  is.  The  thesis  which  we  shall  defend  is  that  the  Hegelian 
doctrine  concerning  this  unity  is  that  it  is  spiritual,  and  that  it 
exists  as  a  self-conscious  Personality.1 

The  point  of  departure  for  our  discussion  we  shall  find  in  the 
Absolute  Idea.  If  we  can  determine  the  essential  nature  of  the 
Idea,  then  we  may  claim  to  have  set  forth  Hegel's  doctrine  of 
the  nature  of  the  Absolute,  since  the  two  terms  are  practically 
synonymous  in  his  system.2  If  Hegel  has  given  any  direct  proof 
at  all  that  the  Absolute  is  to  be  thought  of  as  personal,  it  must 
be  sought  in  an  investigation  of  the  Idea;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
if  it  can  be  shown  that  the  Idea  is  a  self-conscious  Individuality, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  Hegel  teaches  the  doctrine  of  a  personal 

1I  use  the  term  'personality'  as  synonymous  with  selfhood  or  self-consciousness. 

2  It  may  be  said  that  in  a  sense  Hegel  makes  a  distinction  between  the  terms 
Idea  and  God,  giving  to  the  latter  a  religious  coloring.  But  he  insists  over  and  over 
again  that  the  object  of  philosophy  and  the  object  of  religion  do  not  differ  from  each 
other,  but  are  essentially  the  same.  For  speculative  reason  the  terms  Idea,  God, 
and  the  Absolute  are  synonymous.  (Cf.  Leighton,  The  Philosophical  Review, 
Vol.  V,  pp.  609-610.  Cf.  Hegel  Philosophy  of  Religion,  trans.,  Vol.  I,  p.  19;  Vol. 
II,  p.  348.) 

114 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  115 

Absolute.  We  ask  first,  then,  Is  the  category  of  the  Absolute 
Idea,  as  defined  for  us  in  the  Logic,  equivalent  to  a  Personality 
or  self-conscious  Individuality? 

We  have  already  pointed  out  that  Hegel  teaches  that  the  Idea 
is  individual;  for  it  assumes  the  form  of  the  Notion,  and  the 
form  of  the  Notion  is  individuality.  Even  a  glance  at  the  Logic 
will  indicate  this  truth:  the  Idea  is  the  last  category  in  the  dia- 
lectical definition  of  the  Notion.  But  this,  in  itself,  proves 
nothing  more  than  that  the  Idea  is  a  unity  of  differences,  and 
that  unity  and  differences  are  equally  essential.  This  is  a  very 
important  result,  to  be  sure;  it  settles  some  vexed  questions 
concerning  the  Absolute  and  the  finite,  as  we  shall  see  in  the 
discussion  of  the  relation  of  God  to  the  world.  But  it  still 
leaves  unanswered  the  problem  of  the  nature  of  the  unity  among 
the  differences.  Does  Hegel  think  of  this  unity  as  personal  and 
self-conscious? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  to  be  found  in  the  triadic  de- 
velopment which  Hegel  has  given  in  that  part  of  the  Doctrine 
of  the  Notion  called  the  Idea.  The  triad  which  we  find  here 
consists  of  the  categories  of  Life,  Cognition  (perhaps  Conscious- 
ness would  more  nearly  adequately  convey  Hegel's  meaning), 
and  the  Absolute  Idea.  The  movement,  though  considerably 
hindered  by  puzzling  and  bothersome  details,  is  tolerably  clear 
in  its  main  features;  and,  fortunately,  it  is  only  the  main  features 
with  which  we  are  here  concerned.  Let  us  follow  this  develop- 
ment. 

We  ask  first  concerning  the  standpoint  of  the  thesis.  Here, 
under  the  category  of  Life,  Hegel  tells  us  that  we  have  the  Idea 
in  its  immediacy  but  in  an  immediacy  which  is  not  true.  By  this 
is  meant,  it  would  seem,  that  in  the  category  of  Life  we  get  the 
first  approximately  explicit  manifestation  of  the  real  nature  of 
the  Idea,  but  in  a  manner  inadequate  to  that  nature.  The  cate- 
gory is  approximately  adequate  to  the  Idea,  because  we  have  in 
it  the  first  explicit  appearance  of  a  spiritual  activity.  Its  in- 
adequacy consists  in  the  fact  that  it  presupposes  an  opposition 
between  subjective  and  objective  which  it  never  succeeds  in  over- 
coming. It  is,  indeed,  true  that  the  dialectical  process  within 
this  category  consists  just  in  transcending  this  opposition:  in 


116        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

the  Kind  (Gattung)  the  particular  living  thing  loses  part  of  its 
immediacy  and  becomes,  to  a  degree,  objective  and  universal. 
Nevertheless,  its  particularity  and  universality  do  not  completely 
coincide.  "Implicitly  it  is  the  universal  or  Kind,  and  yet  im- 
mediately it  exists  as  an  individual  only."1  And  just  because 
of  this  contradiction,  which  is  essential  to  it,  the  category  of 
Life  cannot  furnish  us  with  the  ultimate  synthesis  of  reality. 
In  such  a  synthesis  we  could  have  nothing  more  than  blank 
identity  between  the  particular  and  the  universal ;  the  particular 
on  this  plane  is  not  able  to  withstand  the  universal.  "The  animal 
never  gets  so  far  in  its  Kind  as  to  have  a  being  of  its  own;  it 
succumbs  to  the  power  of  Kind."2  Thus  we  are  forced  to  look  for 
the  unity  of  the  Idea  in  a  category  other  than  that  of  Life.  And 
this  brings  us  to  the  category  which  Hegel  calls  Cognition  in 
general. 

Before  passing  on  to  the  standpoint  of  this  category,  it  will 
be  well  to  pause  here,  and  quote  Hegel's  own  words  bearing  on 
the  defect  and  the  dialectical  development  of  the  category  of 
Life  as  we  have  just  attempted  to  trace  it.  "The  notion  [of 
Life]  and  [its]  reality  do  not  thoroughly  correspond  to  each  other. 
The  notion  of  Life  is  the  soul,  and  this  notion  has  the  body  for 
its  reality.  The  soul  is,  as  it  were,  infused  into  its  corporeity; 
and  in  that  way  it  is  at  first  sentient  only,  and  not  yet  freely  self- 
conscious.  The  process  of  Life  consists  in  getting  the  better 
of  the  immediacy  with  which  it  is  still  beset:  and  this  process, 
which  is  itself  threefold,  results  in  the  idea  under  the  form  of 
judgment,  i.  e.,  the  idea  as  Cognition."3 

In  his  discussion  of  the  category  of  Cognition  Hegel  indulges 
in  numerous  digressions,  which  serve  only  to  obscure  the  outlines 
of  the  dialectical  advance.  But,  if  we  neglect  the  confusing 
details,  the  goal  at  which  the  author  is  aiming  seems  pretty 
clearly  to  be  the  category  of  self -consciousness.  And  he  reaches 
it  in  some  such  way  as  the  following.  Leaving  behind  us  the 
category  of  Life,  as  confessedly  inadequate  to  the  unity  of  the 
Idea,  we  turn  first  to  the  level  of  abstract  cognition  proper,  and 
examine  its  claims.4  This  category  is  at  once  seen  to  be  insufn- 

lEnc.  §  221,  lecture-note.  2Ibid.  3Enc.,  §  216,  lecture-note. 

4This  standpoint  will  not  be  confused  with  the  more  comprehensive  one — also 
called  Cognition  in  the  translation — of  which  it  is  simply  the  first  stage,  Volition 
being  the  second. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  117 

cient,  and  that  for  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  it  presupposes 
a  somewhat  as  given,  upon  which  it  impresses  itself  in  a  more  or 
less  mechanical  fashion;  this  is  the  standpoint  of  the  sciences, 
which  busy  themselves  with  the  discovery  of  laws  without  being 
able  to  pass  judgment  upon  their  ontological  significance.1  "The 
assimilation  of  the  matter,  therefore,  as  a  datum,  presents  itself 
in  the  light  of  a  reception  of  it  into  categories  which  at  the  same 
time  remain  external  to  it,  and  which  meet  each  other  in  the 
same  style  of  diversity.  Reason  is  here  active,  but  it  is  reason 
in  the  shape  of  the  understanding.  The  truth  which  such  Cog- 
nition can  reach  will  therefore  be  only  finite."2  TJie  jsecond 
defect  of  abstract  Cognition,  which  is  an  inevitable  result  of  its 
abstractness,  is  that  it  fails  to  do  justice  to  the  nature  of  the 
knowing  mind;  mind  is  regarded  from  this  point  of  view  too 
much  as  an  empty  vessel  to  be  filled  from  without.  "The  finitude 
of  Cognition  lies  in  the  presupposition  of  a  world  already  in 
existence,  and  in  the  consequent  view  of  the  knowing  subject 
as  a  tabula  rasa."3  For  these  reasons,  therefore,  we  fail  to  find 
in  Cognition  proper  release  from  the  dualism  in  which  the  cate- 
gory of  Life  left  us  bound ;  we  do  not  get  here  the  unity  for  which 
we  are  seeking.  So  we  turn  next  to  volition.  Can  Will  supply 
us  with  a  satisfactory  synthesis?  At  first  it  seems  that  it  might, 
since  from  this  point  of  view  the  objective  falls  together  with  the 
subjective;  objectivity  is  measured  in  terms  of  subjective  ideals 
and  aims.  But  this  is  just  the  difficulty  with  the  standpoint. 
Objectivity  is  too  completely  reduced  to  subjective  terms,  and 
therefore  really  opposes  itself  to  subjectivity ;  the  objective  never, 
in  point  of  fact,  becomes  subjective  and  the  subjective  never 
really  loses  itself  in  objectivity.  Thus  we  are  reduced  to  the 
eternal  Sollen  of  Fichte.  "While  Intelligence  merely  proposes 
to  take  the  world  as  it  is,  Will  takes  steps  to  make  the  world 
what  it  ought  to  be.  Will  looks  upon  the  immediate  and  given 
present  not  as  solid  being,  but  as  mere  semblance  without  reality. 
It  is  here  that  we  meet  those  contradictions  which  are  so  be- 
wildering from  the  standpoint  of  abstract  morality.  This  posi- 

1  At  present  the  particular  sciences  make  no  claim  to  this  ability ;  generally  speak- 
ing, they  see  quite  clearly  that  ontological  problems  do  not  fall  within  their  sphere. 
But  this  has  not  always  been  true. 

*Enc.,  §  226.  3Ibid.,  lecture-note. 


Il8         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

tion  in  its  'practical'  bearings  is  the  one  taken  by  the  philosophy 
of  Kant,  and  even  by  that  of  Fichte.  The  Good,  say  these 
writers,  has  to  be  realized:  we  have  to  work  in  order  to  produce 
it:  and  Will  is  only  the  Good  actualizing  itself.  If  the  world 
then  were  as  it  ought^to  be,  the  action  of  Will  would  be  at  an  end. 
The  Will  itself  therefore  requires  that  its  end  should  not  be  real- 
ized. In  these  words,  a  correct  expression  is  given  to  thefinitude 
of  Will."1  So  once  again,  we  are  disappointed  in  our  search  for 
unity.  "This  Volition  has,  on  the  one  hand,  the  certitude  of  the 
nothingness  of  the  presupposed  object;  but,  on  the  other,  as 
finite,  it  at  the  same  time  presupposes  the  purposed  End  of  the 
Good  to  be  a  mere  subjective  idea,  and  the  object  to  be  inde- 
pendent."2 Volition  pre-supposes  a  discrepancy  between  what 
is  and  what  ought  to  be,  a  discrepancy  which,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  abstract  volition,  cannot  be  eliminated;  and  so  our  unity 
is  not  yet  attained. 

But  a  way  to  that  unity  has  been  suggested.  If  we  could  secure 
a  conjunction  of  what  is  and  what  ought  to  be,  if,  that  is  to  say, 
we  could  combine  the  standpoints  of  Cognition  proper  and  Voli- 
tion in  a  higher  synthesis,  then  it  would  seem  that  we  should 
have  reached  our  goal.  For  in  such  a  synthesis  the  subjective 
would  be  genuinely  objective,  and  the  objective  would  not  stand 
over  against  the  subjective  as  something  foreign  to  it  but  would 
partake  of  its  very  nature.  "The  reconciliation  is  achieved,  when 
Will  in  its  result  returns  to  the  pre-supposition  made  by  Cogni- 
tion. In  other  words,  it  consists  in  the  unity  of  the  theoretical 
and  practical  idea.  Will  knows  the  end  to  be  its  own,  and  Intel- 
ligence apprehends  the  world  as  the  Notion  actual."3 

This  synthesis,  according  to  Hegel,  is  found  in  the  Absolute 
Idea.  It  is  here  that  we  get  our  ultimate  unity  of  the  real.  It 
will  be  well  to  let  Hegel  speak  for  himself  on  this  very  vital 
point.  "The  truth  of  the  Good  is  laid  down  as  the  unity  of  the 
theoretical  and  practical  idea  in  the  doctrine  that  the  Good  is 
radically  and  really  achieved,  that  the  objective  world  is  in  itself 
and  for  itself  the  Idea,  just  as  it  at  the  same  time  eternally  lays 
itself  down  as  End,  and  by  action  brings  about  its  actuality. 
This  Life  which  has  returned  to  itself  from  the  bias  and  finitude 

lEnc.,  §  234,  lecture-note.  2Enc.,  §  233.  sEnc.,  §  234,  lecture-note 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  119 

of  Cognition,  and  which  by  the  activity  of  the  Notion  has  become 
identical  with  it,  is  the  Speculative  or  Absolute  Idea."1  The 
following  passage  is  perhaps  more  explicit:  "The  Absolute  Idea 
is,  in  the  first  place,  the  unity  of  the  theoretical  and  the  practical 
idea,  and  thus  at  the  same  time  the  unity  of  the  idea  of  Life  with 
the  idea  of  Cognition.  In  Cognition  we  had  the  Idea  in  a  biased, 
one-sided  shape.  The  process  of  Cognition  has  issued  in  the 
overthrow  of  this  bias  and  the  restoration  of  that  unity,  which 
as  unity,  and  in  its  immediacy,  is  in  the  first  instance  the  Idea  of 
Life.  The  defect  of  Life  lies  in  its  being  the  Idea  only  implicit 
or  natural:  whereas  Cognition  is  in  an  equally  one-sided  way 
the  merely  conscious  Idea,  or  the  Idea  for  itself.  The  unity  and 
truth  of  these  two  is  the  Absolute  Idea  which  is  both  in  itself 
and  for  itself.  Hitherto  we  have  had  the  Idea  in  development 
through  its  various  grades  as  our  object,  but  now  the  Idea  comes 
to  be  its  own  object."2 

The  development  that  we  have  just  traced  seems  pretty  clearly 
outlined  and  the  goal  to  which  it  has  led  us  appears  to  be  very 
well  defined.  The  category  of  Life  fails  as  a  synthesis  of  reality, 
because  it  is  not  self-conscious ;  the  categories  of  Cognition  proper 
and  Volition  fail,  because  they  are  only  one-sided  representations 
j)f  seli-conscious  lifej  the  Absolute  Idea  succeeds,  because  it 
transcends  the  defects  of  these  lower  standpoints.  And  from 
this  it  seems  only  logical  to  conclude  that  the  Idea  succeeds 
because  it  is  the  unity  of  Self -consciousness  in  its  completion. 
"This  unity  is  consequently  the  absolute  and  all  truth,  the  Idea 
which  thinks  itself — and  here  at  least  as  a  thinking  or  Logical 
Idea."3  One  can  see  no  valid  reason  why  we  may  not  believe 
that  Hegel  is  in  earnest  when  he  says,  as  above,  that  "the  Idea 
comes  to  be  its  own  object"  and  that  "its  developed  and  genuine 
actuality  is  to  be  as  a  subject  and  in  that  way  as  mind."4  On  the 
contrary,  the  dialectical  development  here  seems  to  force  us  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  category  of  the  Absolute  Idea  is  really  a 
Self-consciousness,  a  knowing  and  willing  Individual,  who  'comes 
home'  to  Himself  from  His  differentiations  in  which  He  sees 
Himself  mirrored  as  it  Were  in  His  eternal  essence,  a  Personality 
who  exists  in  and  for  Himself  and  realizes  His  ends  in  the  phe- 

lEnc.,  §  235.  zEnc.,  §  236,  lecture-note. 

Ubid.  *Enc.,  §  213. 


120        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

nomenal  world.  For  within  the  unity  of  the  Idea,  Life,  Cogni- 
tion, and  Volition  are  blended  harmoniously  together,  and  the 
life  of  knowledge  and  the  life  of  activity  are  one.  And  Con- 
sciousness is  the  only  category  that  gives  us  such  a  unity. 

Mr.  McTaggart  objects  to  the  conclusion  which  we  have  here 
reached ;  he  denies  that  it  is  the  logical  outcome  of  Hegel's  system. 
He  readily  grants  that,  according  to  the  system,  the  unity  of  the 
Idea  must  be  construed  in  terms  of  spirit;  and  he  is  ready  not 
only  to  admit  but  to  maintain  that  the  author  believed  it  possible 
for  spirit  to  exist  only  in  the  form  of  personality.1  But  he  con- 
tends that  we  have  no  right  to  infer  from  these  premises  to  the 
conclusion  that  this  unity  of  the  Idea  is  a  personal  unity.  "It 
might  be  said  of  a  College,"  he  urges,  "with  as  much  truth  as  it 
has  been  said  of  the  Absolute,  that  it  is  a  unity,  that  it  is  a  unity 
of  spirit,  and  that  none  of  that  spirit  exists  except  as  personal."2 

This  objection,  however,  seems  to  rest  upon  a  false  notion  of 
the  nature  of  the  unity  that  is  denned  in  the  Idea.  Hegel  himself 
has  told  us,  "The  unity  of  God  is  always  unity,  but  everything 
depends  upon  the  particular  nature  of  this  unity ;  this  point  being 
disregarded,  that  upon  which  everything  depends  is  overlooked."3 
Now  it  seems  that  Mr.  McTaggart  has  misconceived  the  unity 
of  the  Idea;  and  consequently  his  criticism  of  our  conclusion 
which  is  based  upon  this  misconception  is  of  no  significance. 
Let  us  see  what  can  be  said  in  justification  of  this  statement. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  important  to  notice  that  Mr.  McTaggart 
thinks  of  the  Idea  as  absolutely  identical  with  its  differences: 
the  unity,  as  he  conceives  of  it,  is  nothing  more  than  its  dif- 
ferentiations, and  they  are  nothing  more  than  it.  For  instance, 
he  says:  "The  individual  has  his  entire  nature  in  the  manifesta- 
tion of  this  whole,  as  the  whole,  in  turn,  is  nothing  else  but  its 
manifestation  in  individuals."4  Again  he  takes  for  granted  that 
Hegel  "reaches  in  the  category  of  Life  a  result  from  which  he 
never  departs  in  the  subsequent  categories — that  the  unity  and 
plurality  are  in  an  absolutely  reciprocal  relation,  so  that,  while 
the  plurality  is  nothing  but  the  differentiation  of  the  unity,  the 

*Cf.  Studies  in  Hegelian  Cosmology,  Chapter  II;  also  Chapter  III,  §  63. 
*Ibid.,  §  63. 

sWerke,  Bd.  XI,  p.  97  (Philosophy  of  Religion,  trans.,  Vol.  I,  p.  100). 
^Studies  in  Hegelian  Dialectic,  §  186. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  121 

unity  is  nothing  but  the  union  of  the  plurality."1  And  with 
this  supposedly  Hegelian  position  is  contrasted  at  considerable 
length  Lotze's  view,  that  "the  Absolute  is  to  be  taken  as  some- 
thing more  and  deeper  than  the  unity  of  its  differentiations."2 
Thus  Mr.  McTaggart's  conception  of  the  unity  of  the  Idea  is 
hardly  mistakable;  according  to  him,  this  unity  consists  in  the 
relation  of  abstract  identity  between  the  Idea  and  its  differentia- 
tions. 

A  criticism  of  the  tenability  of  this  doctrine  of  identity  will 
be  undertaken  later  on  in  this  chapter.  Our  present  purpose  is 
to  show  that  it  is  not,  as  Mr.  McTaggart  assumes  it  is,  Hegel's 
account  of  the  unity  of  the  Idea.  But  it  will  not  be  amiss,  per- 
haps, to  pause  here  for  a  moment  to  point  out  one  or  two  diffi- 
culties involved  in  this  interpretation  of  the  critic.  In  the  first 
place,  if  the  unity  and  the  differences  of  the  Idea  are  in  exact 
equilibrium,  it  is  not  quite  evident  that  any  room  is  left  anywhere 
for  that  'simple  and  indivisible  element'  which  Mr.  McTaggart 
makes  the  very  quintessence  of  the  personality  of  finite  individ- 
uals and  upon  which  he  bases  his  argument  for  their  immortality.3 
On  this  hypothesis  it  would  appear  that  the  finite  individual 
finds  himself  as  sorely  pressed  as  does  the  Absolute;  for  the 
personality  of  the  former  is  in  just  as  precarious  a  predicament 
as  is  that  of  the  latter.4  In  the  second  place,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  where  such  a  unity  as  Mr.  McTaggart  insists  upon  becomes 
actual;  there  certainly  is  room  to  question  whether  it  is  ever 
actualized.  If  its  actualization  is  possible,  it  would  have  to  be 
in  a  state  of  society  which  yet  lies  in  the  far  distant  future; 
certainly  society  has  not  yet  attained  unto  it.  So  it  would  appear 
to  be  a  unity  that  ought  to  be  but  is  not — a  conception  so 
vigorously  criticized  by  Hegel.  In  the  third  place  and  finally, 
the  problem  of  the  contingent,  which  on  any  idealistic  theory 
short  of  pessimism  is  a  puzzling  one,  becomes  doubly  so  on  Mr. 
McTaggart's  hypothesis.  He  seems  logically  bound  to  assert 

^Studies  in  Hegelian  Cosmology,  §  35. 

2Ibid.     This  idea  is  expressed  in  §§  51,  63,  etc. 

3Cf.  ibid.,  §§  85  ff. 

4Mr.  McTaggart  escapes  this  difficulty  by  inconsistently  making  the  finite  in- 
dividual more  than  a  mere  manifestation  of  the  whole;  there  is  something  unique 
about  the  individual,  after  all,  that  falls  outside  the  unity  that  binds  him  to  others. 


122         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

either  that  the  finite  is  perfect,  or  that  the  imperfections  of  the 
finite,  qua  imperfections,  belong  to  the  essential  nature  of  the 
Absolute;  for  the  Absolute,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  is  its  dif- 
ferentiations.1 To  sum  up  the  whole  matter,  Mr.  McTaggart 
seems  to  be  between  the  Scylla  of  a  fictitious  unity  and  the 
Charybdis  of  differences  that  defy  conjunction.  His  universal 
is  one  which,  after  it  has  succeeded  in  unifying  the  universe, 
itself  finds  nowhere  to  lay  its  head;  and  his  particulars  tend 
either  to  vanish  entirely  into  the  universal,  or — this  is  the  more 
imminent  danger — to  fly  asunder  and  become  discrete  entities. 
And  one  is  inclined  to  think  that  this  is  exactly  the  difficulty  into 
which,  as  Hegel  points  out,  Leibnitz  fell — the  difficulty,  namely, 
of  resolving  the  contradiction  between  an  absolutely  self-centered 
individual  and  a  completely  unifying  universal  that  swamps 
its  differences.2 

But  to  return  from  this  digression,  let  us  ask  concerning  the 
justification  of  Mr.  McTaggart's  interpretation  of  Hegel's  mean- 
ing. The  exact  balance  which  the  critic  supposes  between  the 
unity  of  the  Idea  and  its  manifestations  is  foreign  to  the  author's 
conception  of  the  matter.  In  the  first  place,  the  dialectical 
movement,  which  we  have  above  outlined,  bears  out  this  con- 
tention. Contrary  to  Mr.  McTaggart's  assertion  that  in  the 
category  of  Life  Hegel  reaches  a  result  from  which  he  never 
departs,  namely,  an  'absolutely  reciprocal  relation'  between  the 
unity  and  its  plurality,  it  may  be  argued  that  the  development 
from  the  category  of  Life  to  that  of  the  Absolute  Idea  consists 
just  in  transcending  this  relation  of  identity,  and  in  asserting  a 
unity  which  exists  for  itself  within  its  differences.  It  would  be 
hard  to  say  in  what  respect  the  Idea  is  an  advance  beyond  the 
category  of  Life,  if  not  in  the  fact  that  it  unites  within  itself  the 
theoretical  and  practical  elements  of  the  spiritual  life.  And  such 
a  synthesis,  as  we  have  seen,  is  that  of  consciousness.  If  this  is 
the  result  to  which  Hegel  leads  us,  then  the  unity  of  the  Idea  is 
more  than  its  differences,  more  than  'the  union  of  the  plurality' ; 

JIt  is  only  fair  to  mention  that  Mr.  McTaggart  anticipates  this  charge  and  denies 
its  justice  (§§  38-39).  In  spite  of  this,  however,  I  urge  it  because  it  seems  to  me 
that  it  becomes  unwarranted  only  when  the  conception  of  an  absolutely  reciprocal 
relation  between  the  Absolute  and  its  differentiations  is  definitely  abandoned. 

2Enc.,  §  194. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  123 

for  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  nature  of  consciousness  to  be  nothing 
more  than  its  content.  The  Idea  thus  seems  to  be  something 
deeper  than  the  mere  conjunction  of  its  differentiations. 

Again,  Mr.  McTaggart's  position  on  this  point  is  contrary  to 
the  result  of  our  previous  chapter,  that  the  real  for  Hegel  is  the 
individual.  If  that  result  be  true,  then  the  Absolute  Idea  must 
be  an  actual  synthesis  of  concrete  differences,  the  differences 
existing  for  the  synthesis  and  the  synthesis  existing  in  its  dif- 
ferences and  for  itself — such  a  synthesis  as  cannot  be  found  in 
any  society  (however  closely  unified)  of  self-conscious  finite 
spirits.  It  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  the  individual  that  its 
differences  be  more  than  the  union  of  themselves,  and  that  its 
unity  be  more  than  the  conjunction  of  its  differentiations;  in 
other  words,  abstract  identity  of  the  particulars  and  the  universal 
is  foreign  to  the  essence  of  the  concrete  individual.  If  therefore 
we  are  right  in  our  position  that  Hegel's  ultimate  synthesis,  the 
Absolute  Idea,  must  be  individual  in  its  nature,  we  are  also  right 
in  insisting  that  the  synthesis  is  not  identical  with  its  differences. 
And  that  we  are  in  the  right  here  the  whole  first  Part  of  our  study 
bears  witness. 

Mr.  McTaggart's  difficulty  here  is  traceable  to  his  failure  to 
appreciate  the  significance  of  negation  in  Hegel's  doctrine  of 
thought.  For  the  unity  of  the  Idea  is  a  negative  unity,  and  as 
such  is  different  from  the  unity  that  either  destroys  multiplicity 
or  itself  fails  to  exist.  I  shall  let  Hegel  state  the  matter:  "As 
the  Idea  is  (a)  a  process,  it  follows  that  such  an  expression  for  the 
Absolute  as  unity  of  thought  and  being,  of  finite  and  infinite,  etc., 
is  false;  for  unity  expresses  an  abstract  and  merely  quiescent 
identity.  As  the  Idea  is  (b)  subjectivity,  it  follows  that  the 
expression  is  equally  false  on  another  account.  That  unity  of 
which  it  speaks  expresses  a  merely  virtual  or  underlying  presence 
of  the  genuine  unity.  The  infinite  would  thus  seem  to  be  merely 
neutralized  by  the  finite,  the  subjective  by  the  objective,  thought 
by  being.  But  in  the  negative  unity  of  the  Idea,  the  infinite 
overlaps  and  includes  the  finite,  thought  overlaps  being,  sub- 
jectivity overlaps  objectivity.  The  unity  of  the  Idea  is  thought, 
infinity,  and  subjectivity,  and  is  in  consequence  to  be  essentially 
distinguished  from  the  Idea  as  substance,  just  as  this  overlapping 


124        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

subjectivity,  thought,  or  infinity  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
one-sided  subjectivity,  one-sided  thought,  one-sided  infinity  to 
which  it  descends  in  judging  and  defining."1  A  study  of  this 
passage  discloses  the  fact  that  the  unity  of  the  Idea,  which  is  a 
negative  unity,  is  not  the  unity  of  exact  equilibrium. 

Mr.  McTaggart  has  another  objection  to  raise  against  the 
thesis  we  are  here  maintaining.  He  not  only  asserts  that  the 
position  which  we  have  attributed  to  Hegel  is  not  logically 
involved  in  his  system, — he  does  admit  that  the  dialectic  itself 
furnishes  no  positive  disproof  of  it — but  he  also  contends  that 
the  position  is  one  which  Hegel  himself  did  not  hold.  He  thinks 
that  Hegel  explicitly  repudiates  the  doctrine  of  a  personal  Abso- 
lute, and  he  bases  his  contention  on  the  conclusion  of  the  Philos- 
ophy of  Religion.2  "It  seems  clear  from  the  Philosophy  of 
Religion,"  he  tells  us,  "that  the  truth  of  God's  nature,  according 
to  Hegel,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Kingdom  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  .  .  . 
And  the  Kingdom  of  the  Holy  Ghost  appears  to  be  not  a  person 
but  a  community."3 

Before  passing  on  to  examine  the  basis  of  this  argument,  I 
cannot  refrain  from  quoting  a  few  other  passages  from  various 
contexts,  which  seem  to  be  in  direct  refutation  of  the  contention 
which  the  critic  is  trying  to  establish.  I  shall  cite  only  those 
passages  which  have  explicit  reference  to  the  point.  In  the  larger 
Logic  at  the  beginning  of  the  discussion  of  the  Absolute  Idea  we 
read:  "The  Notion  is  not  only  soul  but  free  subjective  Notion, 
which  is  for  itself  and,  therefore,  has  personality — the  practical 
objective  Notion  which  is  determined  in  and  for  itself,  and  which, 
as  person,  is  impenetrable  atomic  subjectivity."4  A  page  or  two 
below,  after  having  spoken  of  the  method  as  an  immanent  form 
of  development,  the  author  says:  "The  Method  thus  shows  itself 
to  be  the  Notion  which  knows  itself,  and  which,  as  the  Absolute, 
both  subjective  and  objective,  has  itself  for  its  own  object."5 
Again,  in  the  smaller  Logic:  "It  is  true  that  God  is  necessity,  or, 
as  we  may  also  put  it,  that  He  is  the  absolute  Thing:  He  is 
however  no  less  the  absolute  Person.  That  He  is  the  absolute 
Person,  however,  is  a  point  which  the  philosophy  of  Spinoza  never 

lEnc.,  §  215.  2Cf.  Studies  in  Hegelian  Cosmology,  §§  214-218. 

*Ibid.,  §  63.  *Werke,  Bd.  V,  pp.  317-318. 

6Ibid.,  p.  320;  see  also  p.  339. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  125 

reached ;  and  on  that  side  it  falls  short  of  the  true  notion  of  God 
which  forms  the  content  of  religious  consciousness  in  Christian- 
ity."1 In  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  we  are  told  that  "God  is 
himself  consciousness,  He  distinguishes  Himself  from  Himself 
within  Himself,  and  as  consciousness  He  gives  Himself  as  object 
for  what  we  call  the  side  of  consciousness."2  And  later  in  the 
same  work  occurs  a  passage  which  seems  to  have  been  written 
designedly  to  meet  a  position  like  that  which  Mr.  McTaggart 
attributes  to  Hegel :  "The  Divine  is  not  to  be  conceived  of  merely 
as  a  universal  thought,  or  as  something  inward  and  having 
potential  existence  only;  the  objectifying  of  the  Divine  is  not 
to  be  conceived  of  simply  as  the  objective  form  it  takes  in  all  men, 
for  in  that  case  it  would  be  conceived  of  simply  as  representing 
the  manifold  forms  of  the  spiritual  in  general,  and  the  develop- 
ment which  the  Absolute  Spirit  has  in  itself  and  which  has  to 
advance  till  it  reaches  the  form  of  what  is  the  form  of  immediacy, 
would  not  be  contained  in  it."3  The  fourteenth  lecture  on  the 
'Proofs  of  the  Existence  of  God'  has  something  to  say  on  the 
point:  "That  man  knows  God  implies,  in  accordance  with  the 
essential  idea  of  communion  or  fellowship,  that  there  is  a  com- 
munity of  knowledge;  that  is  to  say,  man  knows  God  only  in 
so  far  as  God  Himself  knows  Himself  in  man.  This  knowledge 
is  God's  self-consciousness,  but  it  is  at  the  same  time  a  knowledge 
of  God  on  the  part  of  man,  and  this  knowledge  of  God  by  man  is 
a  knowledge  of  man  by  God."4  Finally,  in  the  Introduction  to 
the  Philosophy  of  History  we  read :  "It  is  One  Individuality  which, 
presented  in  its  essence  as  God,  is  honored  and  enjoyed  in  Reli- 
gion; which  is  exhibited  as  an  object  of  sensuous  contemplation 
in  Art;  and  is  apprehended  as  an  intellectual  conception  in 
Philosophy."5  To  these  seemingly  quite  explicit  passages  others 
might  be  added.6  But  enough  have  been  quoted  to  establish 
at  least  a  presumption  that,  according  to  Hegel's  own  statements 
on  the  point,  God  is  not  a  community  of  finite  spirits  but  a 
Personality. 

lEnc.,  §  151,  lecture-note.      *Werke,  Bd.  XII,  p.  192  (trans.,  Vol.  II,  p.  329). 
3Ibid.,  p.  284  (trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  74). 

*Ibid.,  p.  496  (trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  303).     Curiously    enough  Mr.  McTaggart 
cites  this  passage  in  support  of  his  interpretation  (Cosmology,  §  224). 
*Werke,  Bd.  IX,  p.  66  (trans.,  p.  55). 
6See  especially  the  Introduction  to  the  third  volume  of  the  larger  Logic. 


126        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

We  turn  now  to  an  examination  of  the  basis  upon  which  Mr. 
McTaggart  rests  his  contention.  Does  the  dialectical  movement 
in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  from  the  Kingdom  of  the  Father, 
through  the  Kingdom  of  the  Son,  to  the  Kingdom  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  justify  the  conclusion  that  Hegel  conceives  of  God  as 
nothing  more  than  a  community  of  finite  individuals?  To  this 
question  I  think  a  negative  answer  must  be  given.  Let  us  follow 
this  movement  in  some  detail. 

There  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  agree  with  Mr.  McTag- 
gart that  the  three  stages  of  the  Kingdoms  of  the  Father,  of  the 
Son,  and  of  the  Spirit  form  a  dialectical  triad.  And  from  this, 
we  also  agree,  it  necessarily  follows  that,  "if  God  is  really  personal, 
He  must  be  personal  in  the  Kingdom  of  Spirit."1  But  one  fails 
to  see  how  these  premises  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Spirit 
which  manifests  itself  in  the  synthesis  here  cannot  be  a  Person- 
ality, an  Individual.  To  be  sure  we  must  admit  that  God,  on 
this  showing,  is  adequately  represented  only  in  a  community  of 
spirits,  since  the  Kingdom  of  the  Spirit  is  conceived  of  as  such  a 
community.  And,  of  course,  it  would  be  absurd  to  contend  that 
a  community  is,  or  can  possibly  be,  a  person.  But  it  is  difficult 
to  see,  so  much  being  granted,  how  we  are  necessarily  committed 
to  the  conclusion  that  in  the  Kingdom  of  the  Spirit  God  must  be 
impersonal,  or  that,  when  adequately  represented,  He  becomes 
absolutely  identical  with  the  spiritual  community  in  which  He 
finds  fullest  expression.  Such  a  conclusion  is  forced  upon  us 
only  when  we  assume,  with  the  critic,  that  God  is  just  His  mani- 
festations and  nothing  more.  And  on  this  assumption  we  could 
not  logically  confine  the  Absolute  to  any  community  of  self- 
conscious  spirits, — unless,  indeed,  we  are  willing  to  endow  all 
forms  of  nature  with  spiritual  qualities ;  for  Hegel  unquestionably 
maintains  that  Nature  is  God's  manifestation  of  Himself.  But 
the  assumption  is  arbitrary  and  groundless,  if  our  position  con- 
cerning the  unity  and  individuality  of  the  Idea  is  true. 

Furthermore,  this  triad,  as  interpreted  by  Mr.  McTaggart, 
differs  essentially  from  other  triads  in  the  Logic  and  elsewhere. 
For  his  argument  necessitates  the  assumption  that  the  movement 
here  consists  in  an  attempt  to  get  away  from  an  entirely  erroneous 

^Studies  in  Hegelian  Cosmology,  §  216. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  127 

view  of  God's  nature  to  a  true  and  fundamentally  different  view. 
For  example,  after  insisting  that  the  triad  is  a  genuine  dialectical 
process  and  that,  consequently,  we  must  look  for  an  adequate 
expression  of  God's  nature  only  in  the  synthesis,  he  continues: 
"If  [God]  were  personal  as  manifested  in  the  first  and  second 
Kingdoms,  but  not  in  the  third,  it  would  mean  that  He  was 
personal  when  viewed  inadequately,  but  not  when  viewed  ade- 
quately— i.  e.,  that  He  was  not  really  personal."1  This  is  the 
critic's  interpretation  of  the  actual  movement  and  result  of  the 
triad.  This  interpretation,  however,  makes  of  the  triad  an  ex- 
ception. For  usually  in  the  dialectical  triad  there  is  a  thread 
of  connection  running  from  thesis  to  synthesis ;  the  two  are  never 
separated  by  a  chasm.  But  on  Mr.  McTaggart's  interpretation 
of  the  triad  before  us,  thesis  and  synthesis  would  seem  to  be 
torn  completely  asunder;  in  the  thesis,  God  is  viewed  as  a 
Personality,  while,  in  the  synthesis,  He  is  defined  only  as  the 
abstract  unity  of  the  Church,  and  is  personal  in  no  sense  what- 
soever. Thus  there  is  no  connection  between  thesis  and  syn- 
thesis: the  synthesis  is  a  mere  negation  of  the  thesis.  If  the 
synthesis  is  right,  therefore,  the  thesis  must  be  completely  wrong, 
absolutely  false — a  fact  which  we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  think- 
ing is  not  characteristic  of  a  dialectical  triad.  Mr.  McTaggart's 
argument  seems  thus  to  make  of  the  present  triad  an  extraordi- 
nary exception. 

In  point  of  fact,  the  movement  here  is  not  away  from  person- 
ality to  impersonality.  The  dialectic  does  force  us  to  say  that 
the  Spiritual  Community  is  necessary  to  an  adequate  represen- 
tation of  the  nature  of  God;  but  this  is  very  far  from  saying 
that  God  is  the  Community  or  that  the  Community  is  God. 
The  critic  does  not  refer  to  any  passages  in  which  Hegel  speaks 
of  this  very  significant,  and  withal  very  peculiar,  turn  in  the 
dialectic  advance;  and  I  have  been  able  to  find  none.  I  have, 
however,  found  one  in  which  the  identification  in  question  seems 
to  be  denied,  and  it  runs  so:  "This  third  sphere"  (that  is,  the 
sphere  of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Spirit,  the  Spiritual  Community) 
"represents  the  Idea  in  its  specific  character  as  individuality; 
but,  to  begin  with,  it  exhibits  only  the  one  individuality,  the 


128         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

divine  universal  individuality  as  it  is  in-and-for-itself.  .  .  .  Indi- 
viduality as  exclusive  is  for  others  immediacy,  and  is  the  return 
from  the  other  into  self.  The  individuality  of  the  Divine  Idea, 
the  Divine  Idea  as  a  person  (ein  Mensch),  first  attains  to  com- 
pleteness in  actuality  (Wirklichkeif) ,  since  at  first  it  has  the 
many  individuals  confronting  it,  and  brings  these  back  into  the 
unity  of  Spirit,  into  the  Church  or  Spiritual  Community  (Ge- 
meinde),  and  exists  here  as  real  universal  self -consciousness."1 
If  I  understand  what  this  means,  it  indicates  that,  as  Hegel 
himself  views  the  matter,  the  third  Kingdom,  the  Kingdom  of 
the  Spirit,  is  the  standpoint  where  God  is  first  viewed  in  His  true 
Personality;  for  here  it  is  that  He  is  seen  to  be  in  vital  and 
actual  touch  with  men  and  things.  Thus  it  appears  that  the 
triad  is  not  a  movement  from  the  conception  of  a  personal  to  the 
conception  of  an  impersonal  God ;  but  rather  from  an  inadequate 
to  an  adequate  representation  of  God  as  personal.  He  is  not 
pure  thought,  existing  behind  the  world  as  it  were  in  infinite 
space;  this  is  the  conception  of  the  thesis.  On  the  contrary, 
He  is  that  spiritual  unity,  that  'real  universal  self-consciousness,' 
realizing  His  aims  and  purposes  in  the  lives  of  finite  self-conscious 
agents  whose  aspirations  are  perfected  and  consummated  in  Him. 
In  some  such  way  it  seems  that  the  movement  here  must  be 
understood. 

Another  fact  that  militates  against  Mr.  McTaggart's  position 
on  this  point — at  any  rate  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  present 
essay — is  that  the  culmination  of  Hegel's  discussion  of  the  Spirit- 
ual Community  is  the  standpoint  of  the  Notion.  The  three 
phases  within  this  discussion  Hegel  designates  as  follows:  (a) 
The  conception  of  the  Spiritual  Community;  (b)  The  realization 
of  the  Spiritual  Community ;  and  (c)  The  realization  of  the  spirit- 
ual in  universal  reality  (Wirklichkeif).  So  far  as  our  present 
purpose  is  concerned,  the  first  two  of  these  divisions  may  be 
dismissed  without  comment.  The  third,  however,  is  of  interest 
especially  when  we  learn  that  it  "directly  involves  the  trans- 
formation and  remodelling  of  the  Spiritual  Community."2  It  is 
divided  into  a  threefold  movement,  which  consists  in  three  dif- 

lWerke,  Bd.  XII,  p.  309  (Philosophy  of  Religion,  trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  100-101). 
.,  p.  340  (trans.,  ibid.,  p.  134). 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  129 

ferent  attitudes  taken  towards  objectivity.  Hegel  states  this 
movement  in  outline  thus:  "Objectivity  as  an  external  immediate 
world,  is  the  heart  with  its  interests;  another  form  of  objectivity 
is  that  of  reflection,  of  abstract  thought,  of  Understanding;  and 
the  third  and  true  form  of  objectivity  is  the  Notion.  We  have 
now  to  consider  how  Spirit  realizes  itself  in  these  three  elements."1 
The  development  here  outlined  is  not  easily  followed  in  detail. 
But  it  seems  to  consist  in  tracing  the  essential  features  of  the 
faith  of  the  Spiritual  Community  concerning  the  nature  of  the 
objective  order,  and  the  attitudes  assumed  towards  such  an  ob- 
jective order.  In  the  first  stage,  the  Spiritual  Community  has 
opposed  to  it  a  worldly  element,  which  seems  to  exist  on  its  own 
account;  there  is  here  an  opposition  between  the  religious  and 
the  secular.  In  the  second  stage  we  swing  to  the  other  extreme, 
in  which  the  objective  is  practically  disregarded  and  the  idea  of 
God,  being  emptied  of  content,  is  reduced  to  an  abstraction; 
this  is  that  "inner  self-enclosed  life  which  may  indeed  co-exist 
with  calm,  lofty,  and  pious  aspirations,  but  may  as  readily  ap- 
pear as  hypocrisy  or  as  vanity  in  its  most  extreme  form."2  The 
first  of  these  two  stages  Hegel  calls  the  "servitude  of  Spirit  in 
the  absolute  region  of  freedom";  the  second  is  "abstract  sub- 
jectivity, subjective  freedom  without  content."3  The  final  stage 
is,  as  we  would  expect,  the  reconciliation  of  these  two  extremes. 
It  discovers  that  freedom,  real  intelligible  freedom,  is  to  be 
found  only  in  the  objective,  that  objective  and  subjective,  when 
they  are  adequately  comprehended,  fall  together.  This  is  the 
standpoint  of  philosophy.  "What  we  have  finally  to  consider 
is  that  subjectivity  develops  the  content  out  of  itself,  but  it  does 
this  in  accordance  with  necessity — it  knows  and  recognizes  that 
the  content  is  necessary,  and  that  it  is  objective  and  exists  in- 
and-for-itself.  This  is  the  standpoint  of  philosophy,  according 
to  which  the  content  takes  refuge  in  the  Notion,  and  by  means 
of  thought  gets  its  restoration  and  justification."4  The  objective 
within  the  Community,  therefore,  must  be  known  to  be  in-and- 
for-itself  before  the  community  has  attained  complete  and  perfect 
actualization;  and  this  knowledge  is  reached  only  when  philo- 
sophic comprehension  is  substituted  for  intuitive  faith.  Thus 

llbid.,  p.  341  (trans.,  ibid.,  p.  135).      2Ibid.,  p.  346  (trans.,  ibid,  p.,  141). 
3Ibid.,  p.  350  (trans.,  ibid.,  p.  145).      *Ibid. 


130        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

we  are  once  again  brought  to  our  former  problem  concerning  the 
real  nature  of  the  Notion  and  its  significance  in  Hegel's  system. 
If  the  form  of  the  Notion  is  individuality,  then  it  would  seem  that, 
on  the  above  showing,  the  Spiritual  Community  is  perfected  only 
when  its  unity  is  actualized. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  furthermore,  that  in  philosophy  and  not  in 
the  Spiritual  Community,  as  such,  is  to  be  found  the  true  realiza- 
tion of  the  object  of  Absolute  Religion.  The  Spiritual  Com- 
I  munity,  "in  attaining  realization  in  its  spiritual  reality,"  falls 
into  "a  condition  of  inner  disruption";  and  so  "its  realization 
appears  to  be  at  the  same  time  its  disappearance."1  "For  us," 
however,  "philosophical  knowledge  has  harmonized  this  discord," 
and  we  have  "rediscovered  in  revealed  religion  the  truth  and  the 
Idea."2  And  from  this  it  seems  evident  that  the  nature  of  ulti- 
mate reality  is  to  be  sought,  not  in  the  Spiritual  Community, 
but  in  the  Idea.  We  are  thus  sent  back  to  the  study  of  the 
dialectic  for  an  answer  to  our  question  concerning  the  Absolute ; 
and  we  have  already  seen  what  answer  the  dialectic  gives. 

The  foregoing  considerations  force  us  to  question  the  validity 
of  Mr.  McTaggart's  contention  that,  for  Hegel,  the  Absolute  is 
nothing  more  than  a  community  of  self-conscious  spirits.  But 
this  interpretation  of  Hegel  may  be  traversed  from  another  point 
of  departure.  I  think  that  it  can  be  shown  that  a  community 
of  self-conscious  persons — however  close  the  unity  that  binds 
them  together — is  not,  in  Hegel's  opinion,  and  cannot  be  an 
adequate  representation  of  the  unity  of  the  Idea.  And  it  can 
be  shown  in  some  such  way  as  the  following. 

In  one  place  Hegel  tells  us  that  the  state  is  "the  divine  Idea 
as  it  exists  on  earth."3  In  another  passage  he  speaks  of  the  state 
as  an  'actual  God,'  and  defines  it  as  "the  march  of  God  in  the 
world."4  In  yet  another  context  he  says:  "It  is  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  state  that  the  Divine  has  passed  into  the  sphere  of 
actuality."5  Looked  at  from  the  other  side,  the  state  is  con- 
ceived of  by  Hegel  as  the  highest  form  of  human  society.  Ac- 
cording to  the  plan  which  is  sketched  in  the  Philosophy  of  Mind 

llbid.,  p.  354  (trans.,  ibid.,  p.  149).      *Ibid.,  p.  355  (trans.,  ibid.,  p.  151). 

^Philosophy  of  History,  trans.,  p.  41. 

*Werke,  Bd.  VIII,  §  258  (Philosophy  of  Right,  trans.,  p.  247). 

*Werke,  Bd.  XII,  p.  343  (Philosophy  of  Religion,  trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  138). 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF   THE  ABSOLUTE.  131 

and  elaborated  at  length  in  the  Philosophy  of  Right,  the  state  is 
viewed  as  the  choicest  product  of  the  moral  life,  it  is  "the  self- 
conscious  ethical  substance."1  The  very  highest  point  that  the 
Objective  Mind  can  attain  unto  in  its  strivings  towards  divinity 
is  the  unity  of  the  state;  this  is  the  most  truly  real  form  of 
social  union.  If  now  it  can  be  shown  that  Hegel  does  not  admit 
that  Mr.  McTaggart's  doctrine  of  a  community  of  self-conscious 
beings  is  an  adequate  expression  of  the  essential  nature  of  the 
state,  then  we  may  safely  conclude  that  he  would  not  admit 
that  the  total  nature  of  reality  is  exhausted  in  such  a  community. 

Concerning  the  unity  of  the  state,  this  highest  unity  of  society, 
Hegel's  position  is  expressed  unequivocally  in  both  the  Philosophy 
of  Mind  and  the  Philosophy  of  Right,  and  in  the  latter  at  some 
length.  Put  in  a  word,  his  position  amounts  to  an  insistence 
that  the  function  of  the  prince  or  monarch  is  absolutely  essential 
to  the  ideal  state,  that  no  state  is  complete  apart  from  this 
personal  expression  of  its  unity,  and  that  this  conclusion  is  neces- 
sitated by  a  consideration  of  the  idea  or  notion  of  the  state  apart 
from  accidental  circumstances  of  time  or  place.  The  unity  of 
the  commonwealth,  he  urges,  must  be  actualized  in  a  personality 
before  it  becomes  a  real  unity,  or  before  the  state  is  perfectly 
organized:  the  rational  articulation  of  the  state  demands  this 
incarnation  of  its  unity.  "We  usually  speak  of  the  three  func- 
tions of  the  state,"  says  Hegel,  "the  legislative,  executive,  and 
judicial.  The  legislative  corresponds  to  universality,  and  the 
executive  to  particularity;  but  the  judicial  is  not  the  third  ele- 
ment of  the  conception."2  This  third  element,  we  are  imme- 
diately told,  is  to  be  found  in  the  function  of  the  prince;  this  is 
the  synthesis  of  the  other  two  functions  of  the  state,  and  in  this 
they  are  brought  together  in  a  personal  unity.  Apart  from  this 
expression  of  the  will  of  the  state  in  the  will  of  the  monarch  the 
state  is  not  organized  according  to  the  nature  of  the  Notion. 

This  is  not  merely  an  interesting  point  which  Hegel  happens 
to  mention  incidentally  in  his  theory  of  the  state.  It  is  one  upon 
which  he  lays  special  emphasis.  I  shall  quote  some  of  these 
emphatic  passages.  "It  is  easy  for  one  to  grasp  the  notion  that 
the  state  is  the  self-determining  and  completely  sovereign  will, 


.,  §  535- 
*Werke,  Bd.  VIII,  §  272  (Philosophy  of  Right,  trans.,  p.  277). 


132         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

whose  judgment  is  final.  It  is  more  difficult  to  apprehend  this 
'I  will'  as  a  person.  .  .  .  This  'I  will'  constitutes  the  greatest 
distinction  between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  world,  and  so 
must  have  its  peculiar  niche  in  the  great  building  of  the  state. 
It  is  to  be  deplored  that  this  characteristic  should  be  viewed  as 
something  merely  external,  to  be  set  aside  or  used  at  pleasure."1 
Again:  "The  conception  of  monarch  offers  great  difficulty  to 
abstract  reasonings  and  to  the  reflective  methods  of  the  under- 
standing. The  understanding  never  gets  beyond  isolated  deter- 
minations, and  ascribes  merit  to  mere  reasons,  or  finite  points  of 
view  and  what  can  be  derived  from  them.  Thus  the  dignity  of 
the  monarch  is  represented  as  something  derivative  not  only  in 
its  form  but  also  in  its  essential  character.  But  the  conception 
of  the  monarch  is  not  derivative,  but  purely  self-originated."2 
Once  more:  "Personality  or  subjectivity  generally,  as  infinite 
and  self-referring,  has  truth  only  as  a  person  or  independent 
subject.  This  independent  existence  must  be  one,  and  the  truth 
which  it  has  is  of  the  most  direct  or  immediate  kind.  The 
personality  of  the  state  is  actualized  only  as  person,  the  monarch. 
...  A  so-called  moral  person,  a  society,  community  (Gemeinde), 
or  family,  be  it  as  concrete  as  it  may,  possesses  personality  only 
as  an  element  and  abstractly.  It  has  not  reached  the  truth  of 
its  existence.  But  the  state  is  this  very  totality  in  which  the 
moments  of  the  conception  gain  reality  in  accordance  with  their 
peculiar  truth."3  Again:  "When  a  people  is  not  a  patriarchal 
tribe,  having  passed  from  the  primitive  condition  which  made 
the  forms  of  aristocracy  and  democracy  possible,  and  is  repre- 
sented not  as  in  a  wilful  and  unorganized  condition,  but  as  a 
self-developed  truly  organic  totality,  in  such  a  people  sovereignty 
is  the  personality  of  the  whole,  and  exists,  too,  in  a  reality  which 
is  proportionate  to  the  conception,  the  person  of  the  monarch."4 
Finally:  "In  the  government — regarded  as  organic  totality — the 
sovereign  power  (principate)  is  subjectivity  as  the  infinite  self- 
unity  of  the  Notion  in  its  development; — the  all-sustaining,  all- 
decreeing  will  of  the  state,  its  highest  peak  and  all-pervasive 
unity.  In  the  perfect  form  of  the  state,  in  which  each  and  every 
element  of  the  Notion  has  reached  free  existence,  this  subjectivity 

llbid.,  §  279  (trans.,  pp.  290-291).        *Ibid.  (trans.,  pp.  287-288). 
*Ibid.  (trans.,  p.  287).  *Ibid.  (trans.,  p.  289). 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  133 

is  not  a  so-called  'moral  person,'  or  a  decree  issuing  from  a 
majority  (forms  in  which  the  unity  of  the  decreeing  will  has  not 
an  actual  existence),  but  an  actual  individual — the  will  of  a  de- 
creeing individual — monarchy.  The  monarchical  constitution  is 
therefore  the  constitution  of  developed  reason:  all  other  con- 
stitutions belong  to  lower  grades  of  the  development  and  realiza- 
tion of  reason."1 

Now  what  do  all  these  passages  mean?2  At  least  one  strain 
runs  through  them  all;  and  that  is,  that  the  unity  of  the  state, 
before  it  can  become  real  and  rational,  must  be  embodied  in  an 
actual  form,  must  find  expression  in  an  actually  existent  person. 
The  state  which  has  not  the  power  of  uttering  this  'I  will' — it 
matters  not  how  intrinsically  insignificant  the  'I  will'  may  be; 
it  may  mean  nothing  more  than  the  simple  signing  of  the  name 
T — is  not  a  completely  articulated  organization :  it  lacks  an  essen- 
tial function.  No  merely  organic  whole  is  a  rational  expression 
of  the  nature  of  the  state;  the  unity  must  be  embodied  in  a 
personal  form  which  has  actual,  concrete  existence. 

This  being  true,  we  have  good  reason  to  deny  that  Mr.  Mc- 
Taggart's  conception  of  the  unity  of  the  ultimately  real — a  unity 
which,  as  we  have  pointed  out,  never  really  becomes  actual — 
can  legitimately  be  attributed  to  Hegel.  Of  course  argument 
from  analogy  is  always  dangerous;  and  no  claim  is  made  here 
that  we  should  be  justified  in  drawing  positive  conclusions  con- 
cerning Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the  Idea  solely  on  the 
basis  of  his  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the  state — though  it  is  in- 
dubitably true  that  the  analogy  is  much  more  significant  than 
one  is  apt  to  think,  apart  from  a  very  careful  reading  of  the 
author's  statements  on  the  point.  But  it  does  seem  justifiable 
to  conclude  that,  if  an  actualized  unity  is  essential  to  the  very 
idea  of  the  state,  the  unity  of  ultimate  reality  could  not  be  an 
unrealized,  and,  one  is  inclined  to  say,  an  unrealizable  ideal.  If 
no  community  of  individuals,  however  organically  related  they 
may  be,  adequately  expresses  the  rational  organization  of  the 
state — and  this  thesis  Hegel  unquestionably  maintains — we  can 

*Enc.,  §  542. 

2Of  course,  no  attempt  is  made  here  either  to  give  an  exhaustive  account  of 
Hegel's  conception  of  the  state  or  to  defend  his  theory.  What  we  are  interested 
:n  is  simply  to  point  out  his  insistence  on  the  rational  necessity  of  a  personal  ruler. 


134        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

be  practically  certain  that  the  synthesis  of  ultimate  reality  cannot 
be  found  in  any  community  of  self-conscious  spirits,  however 
organic  or  super-organic  that  community  may  be  and  however 
deep  its  harmony.  The  argument  is  a  simple  a  fortiori  one. 
Hegel  emphatically  asserts  that  a  group  of  individuals  is  not  an 
adequate  representation  of  this  'actual  God'  on  earth:  surely,  he 
would  be  the  first  to  deny  that  it  is  a  perfect  representation  of  the 
essential  nature  of  the  Absolute  Idea.  At  any  rate,  the  burden 
of  proof  seems  to  be  on  those  who  deny  the  validity  of  this  con- 
clusion. So  we  seem  to  have  shown  the  inadequacy  of  Mr. 
McTaggart's  interpretation  of  Hegel  from  another  point  of  de- 
parture.1 

Let  us  bring  together  the  results  of  our  discussion.  Our  con- 
clusion is  that  Hegel's  Absolute  is  an  infinite  Consciousness,  a 

JIt  may  be  objected  that  all  this  talk  about  the  unity  of  the  state  is  beside  the 
issue.  In  developing  this  doctrine  of  the  state,  it  may  be  said,  Hegel  was  only 
trying  to  justify  the  then  existing  government  of  his  own  country;  his  elaborate 
arguments  were  wrought  out  primarily  in  the  interests  of  the  Prussian  monarchy, 
and  not  from  the  objective  point  of  view  of  the  Idea.  Therefore,  it  may  be  con- 
cluded, these  arguments  have  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  logic  of  Hegel's 
system,  and  any  interpretation  that  takes  serious  account  of  them  is  useless. 

I  am  forced  to  believe,  however,  that  such  an  objection  would  be  very  much 
mistaken.  A  careful  reading  of  the  relevant  portions  of  the  Philosophy  of  Right 
will  impress  one  with  the  fact  that  Hegel  was  really  in  earnest  when  he  contends, 
as  quoted  above,  that  "the  monarchical  constitution  is  the  constitution  of  developed 
reason,"  and  that  "all  other  constitutions  belong  to  lower  grades  of  the  develop- 
ment and  realization  of  reason."  He  apparently  is  firmly  convinced  that  in  his 
theory  of  the  state  he  is  presenting  the  form  that  Spirit  assumes  in  its  most  nearly 
perfect  institutional  manifestation  (see  especially  Werke,  Bd.  VIII,  §§  258,  272,  and 
279).  His  own  explicit  statements  bear  witness  to  his  sincerity  in  the  matter. 
To  those  quoted  above  we  might  add  such  as  these:  "When  thinking  of  the  idea  of 
the  state,  we  must  not  have  in  our  mind  any  particular  state,  or  particular  insti- 
tution, but  must  rather  contemplate  the  idea,  this  actual  God,  by  itself."  (Ibid., 
§  258.)  "In  the  organization  of  the  state,  that  is  to  say,  in  constitutional  monarchy, 
we  must  have  before  us  nothing  except  the  inner  necessity  of  the  idea.  Every 
other  point  of  view  must  disappear.  The  state  must  be  regarded  as  a  great  archi- 
tectonic building,  or  the  hieroglyph  of  reason,  presenting  itself  in  actuality.  Every- 
thing referring  merely  to  utility,  externality,  etc.,  must  be  excluded  from  a  philo- 
sophical treatment."  (Ibid.,  §  279.)  We  thus  have  sufficient  evidence,  it  would 
seem,  to  justify  us  in  asserting  that  Hegel  gives  us  the  doctrine  of  the  state  which  he 
honestly  believes  is  most  nearly  the  expression  of  the  logical  implications  of  his 
system.  Even  if  we  grant  that  he  was  prejudiced  in  working  out  this  theory,  as  he 
undoubtedly  was  in  details,  still  we  must  admit  that  he  bases  his  theory  more  or 
less  directly  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Idea;  and  admitting  so  much,  the  above  argument 
from  analogy  holds. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  135 

Personality,  who  synthesizes  in  His  own  experience  the  experi- 
ences of  all.  "An  infinite  intelligence,  an  infinite  spiritual  prin- 
ciple, which  is  manifested  in  finite  minds  though  not  identical 
with  them" — such,  we  agree  with  Professor  Adamson,1  is  Hegel's 
doctrine  of  ultimate  reality.  And  this  conclusion  we  have  based 
upon  the  dialectic  movement  in  the  triad  of  Life,  Cognition,  and 
the  Absolute  Idea,  as  well  as  upon  direct  statements  that  Hegel 
has  made  regarding  the  problem.  The  Hegelian  Absolute,  we 
have  seen,  cannot  be  identified  with  a  community  of  self-con- 
scious spirits,  as  Mr.  McTaggart  contends.  There  seems  to  be 
no  justification  for  such  an  interpretation  of  Hegel  either  in  the 
final  triad  of  the  Logic  or  in  the  final  triad  under  Absolute  Reli- 
gion. In  the  former  we  pass  beyond  the  exact  balance  between 
the  unity  and  its  differences  to  the  category  of  self-consciousness, 
where  the  unity  exists  for  itself  in  its  differentiations;  in  the 
latter  we  are  ultimately  brought  back  to  the  Idea  and  told  to 
look  there  for  the  answer  to  our  question  about  the  nature  of 
God.  Furthermore,  such  a  community  of  spirits  as  Mr.  McTag- 
gart imagines  we  found  would  not  be  adequate  to  express  even 
the  nature  of  the  state  as  Hegel  defines  it.  Thus  from  another 
point  of  departure  we  were  led  to  question  whether  such  a  com- 
munity could  adequately  represent  Hegel's  synthesis  of  ultimate 
reality.  For  it  seemed  that,  if  a  personal  unity  is  essential  to 
the  nature  of  the  state,  we  might  justly  conclude  that  the  syn- 
thesis of  the  real,  of  which  the  state  is  only  an  imperfect  copy, 
could  hardly  be  less  than  a  personal  unity. 

This  conclusion  that  the  Absolute  is  a  self-conscious  Individu- 
ality, leads  us  to  a  further  problem  that  we  must  here  face.  And 
that  problem  is  concerning  the  relation  between  such  an  Absolute 
and  the  world  of  finite  existence.  Granting  that  the  Absolute 
is  a  self-conscious  Personality,  in  what  relation  must  we  say  that 
He  stands  to  our  own  finite  world?  The  remaining  portion  of  this 
chapter  will  be  taken  up  with  an  attempt  to  answer  this  question. 

A  first  glance  at  the  problem  might  lead  one  to  conclude  that 
only  two  solutions  of  it  are  possible,  and  that  either  solution  is 
fatal  to  the  doctrine  of  the  personality  of  the  Absolute.  For  it 
would  seem  that  we  must  admit  either  that  there  is  or  that  there 

^Development  of  Modern  Philosophy,  Vol.  I,  p.  281. 


136         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

is  not  an  Other  to  the  Absolute.  And  with  this  admission  we 
find  ourselves  in  a  dilemma.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  if  there  be 
in  the  universe  something  besides  the  Absolute,  an  Other  that 
has  the  least  degree  of  reality  in  its  own  right,  then  it  apparently 
follows  that  the  Absolute  is  limited  by  this  Other,  is,  in  other 
words,  not  the  Absolute.  "The  slightest  suspicion  of  pluralism, 
the  minutest  wiggle  of  independence  of  any  one  of  its  parts  from 
the  control  of  the  totality  would  ruin  it.  Absolute  unity  brooks 
no  degrees, — as  well  might  you  claim  absolute  purity  for  a  glass 
of  water  because  it  contains  but  a  single  little  cholera-germ. 
The  independence,  however  infinitesimal,  of  a  part,  however 
small,  would  be  to  the  Absolute  as  fatal  as  a  cholera-germ."1 
On  the  other  hand,  if  there  be  no  Other  to  the  Absolute,  if  there 
be  nothing  in  the  universe  that  can  claim  reality  on  its  own 
account  apart  from  its  relation  to  the  Absolute,  then  pantheism 
is  our  only  conclusion.  Evidently,  if  our  theory  merges  every- 
thing into  the  Absolute,  it  is  nothing  short  of  pantheism.  So  it 
would  seem  that  the  doctrine  of  a  personal  Absolute  leaves  us 
either  in  contradiction  with  ourselves  or  in  a  pantheistic  meta- 
physics; and  from  this  dilemma  there  seems  to  be  no  way  of 
escape. 

Perhaps  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  Hegel  wastes  no 
words  in  arguing  for  a  limited  Absolute;  he  does  not  fall  into 
self-contradiction  on  this  point.  For  him  the  Absolute  is  the 
only  true  reality;  all  else  has  its  reality,  not  in  itself,  but  in  the 
Absolute.  Concerning  Hegel's  position  here  there  can,  pre- 
sumably, be  no  question.  On  the  other  hand,  there  need  be  no 
hesitancy  whatsoever  in  asserting  that,  in  Hegel's  own  mind 
at  any  rate,  his  system  is  not  pantheistic.  Pantheism  he  often 
denounces  as  a  mistaken  theory  of  reality;  he  constantly  urges 
that  to  conceive  of  the  Absolute  as  the  One  Reality  in  which  all 
particularity  loses  its  significance  is  completely  erroneous. 
Whatever  may  be  the  relation  that  he  teaches  exists  between 
the  Absolute  and  the  finite  world,  it  certainly  is  not  the  relation 
of  identity,  which,  in  his  opinion,  exists  between  the  Spinozistic 
Substance  and  its  Accidents :  indeed,  it  is  just  in  contradistinction 
to  this  doctrine  of  Spinoza  that  Hegel  is  at  pains  to  define  his 

1  James,  Pragmatism,  p.  160. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  137 

own.  As  Hegel  views  the  matter,  then,  neither  pantheism  nor 
a  finite  God  is  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  in  answer  to  our  prob- 
lem. 

But  how  does  he  find  a  way  of  esape  from  the  dilemma?  In 
both  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  and  the  Philosophy  of  Mind, 
Hegel  tells  us  that  he  is  not  unaware  that  his  theory  may  be 
misconstrued  as  pantheistic;  and  he  is  careful  to  point  out  the 
oversight  on  which  the  misconstruction  rests.  The  point  he 
makes  is  this:  the  interpretation  overlooks  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  Absolute  as  Substance  and  the  Absolute  as  Subject. 
"Those  who  say  that  speculative  philosophy  is  pantheism  gen- 
erally know  nothing  of  this  distinction;  they  overlook  the  main 
point,  as  they  always  do,  and  they  disparage  philosophy  by 
representing  it  as  different  from  what  it  really  is."1  This  dis- 
tinction being  forgotten,  unity  is  construed  to  mean  only  abstract 
identity.  "In  accordance  with  that  superficiality  with  which  the 
polemic  against  philosophy  is  carried  on,  it  is  added,  moreover, 
that  philosophy  is  a  system  of  Identity.  .  .  .  But  those  who 
speak  of  the  philosophy  of  Identity  mean  abstract  unity,  unity 
in  general,  and  pay  no  attention  to  that  upon  which  alone  all 
depends ;  namely,  the  essential  nature  of  this  unity,  and  whether 
it  is  defined  as  Substance  or  Spirit.  .  .  .  What  is  of  importance 
is  the  difference  in  the  character  of  the  unity.  The  unity  of  God 
is  always  unity,  but  everything  depends  upon  the  particular 
nature  of  the  unity ;  this  point  being  disregarded,  that  upon  which 
everything  depends  is  overlooked."2  It  is,  then,  in  the  nature  of 
the  unity  that  Hegel  expects  to  find  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty. 

Of  course  the  unity  which  Hegel  is  here  emphasizing  is  the 
unity  of  the  Notion.  This  unity  of  the  Notion  it  is  which  he 
thinks  satisfactorily  explains  the  relation  of  the  Absolute  to  the 
world  of  particularity.  This  is  evident  from  a  glance  at  the 
Logic.  For  it  is  this  unity  of  the  Notion  that  is  the  culmination 
of  the  dialectical  development  of  the  categories  and  receives 
complete  expression  in  the  category  of  categories,  the  Absolute 
Idea.  This  unity  it  is,  therefore,  that  is  the  ultimate  expression 
of  reality,  the  final  statement  of  the  relation  between  God  and 
the  world.  What,  now,  is  this  unity  of  the  Notion?  If  the 

1Werke,  Bd.  XI,  p.  93  (Philosophy  of  Religion,  trans.,  Vol.  I,  p.  96). 
*Ibid.,  p.  97  (trans.,  ibid.,  pp.  99-100). 


138         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

interpretation  of  Hegel  given  in  the  present  study  is  not  funda- 
mentally false  and  all  of  our  arguments  up  to  this  point  totally 
vicious,  it  seems  that  we  are  forced  to  say  that  the  unity  of  the 
Notion  is  the  category  of  self-consciousness.  This  is  the  con- 
clusion that  is  forced  upon  us  by  the  Phenomenology  of  Spirit; 
the  Notion  is  the  life  of  mind.  Likewise,  the  Logic  teaches  us 
the  same  lesson:  since  the  Absolute  Idea  is  the  ultimate  expres- 
sion of  the  unity  of  the  Notion,  it  follows,  if  the  Absolute  Idea 
is  a  self-conscious  Individual,  that  the  unity  of  the  Notion,  that 
unity  which  explains  the  nature  of  reality,  must  be  self-conscious- 
ness. Indeed,  this  seems  to  be  just  the  point  that  Hegel  has  in 
mind,  in  numerous  passages  in  the  History  of  Philosophy,  the 
Philosophy  of  Religion,  the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  and  elsewhere, 
in  which  he  draws  a  distinction,  as  he  does  in  the  passages  cited 
above,  between  the  definition  of  the  Absolute  as  Substance  and 
his  own  conception  of  the  Absolute  as  Spirit,  or  Subject,  and 
urges  that  the  latter  definition  offers  the  only  way  of  escape 
from  pantheism  in  our  metaphysics.  It  is  in  the  category  of 
self -consciousness,  therefore,  that  we  are  to  look  for  an  exemplifi- 
cation of  the  unity  of  the  Notion. 

Let  us  try  to  see  how  this  category  aids  us  in  our  present 
problem.  In  attempting  to  do  this,  we  shall  first  briefly  analyze 
self-consciousness  to  discover  its  fundamental  characteristics; 
and  then  we  shall,  on  the  basis  of  this  analysis,  see  what  must  be 
our  conclusions  concerning  an  Absolute  Consciousness.  For  it 
seems  certain  that,  if  we  are  to  argue  at  all  concerning  a  personal 
Absolute,  we  must  rest  the  discussion  on  an  analysis  of  finite 
consciousness ;  there  is  no  other  basis  of  discussion.  At  any  rate, 
this  is  what  Hegel  does,  as  the  Phenomenology  shows;  and  we  are 
interested  primarily  in  setting  forth  his  doctrines  and  their  justi- 
fication. 

Whatever  other  characteristics  finite  self-consciousness  may 
have,  there  are  three  which  can  hardly  be  called  in  question. 
The  first  of  these  is  that  consciousness  always  has  a  content. 
By  that  I  mean  that  there  is  always  something  other  than  the 
consciousness  itself,  which  exists  as  the  object  of  it.  Apart  from 
this  objective  reference  consciousness  is  the  veriest  abstraction.1 

*I  use  the  terms  'content'  and  'objective  reference'  as  synonymous.     An  ob- 
ection  might  be  raised  to  this  use  of  the  terms.     But  perhaps  the  objection  would 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  139 

The  second  characteristic  of  consciousness  is  that  it  always  in- 
cludes its  content  as  something  essentially  its  own.  The  content 
is  not  received  by  consciousness  as  if  it  were  a  stranger  to  be 
momentarily  entertained  and  then  lost  forever:  on  the  contrary, 
the  content  is  the  very  life  of  the  consciousness  that  possesses  it. 
As  Hegel  would  say,  spirit  finds  the  object  to  be  bone  of  its  bone 
and  flesh  of  its  flesh,  and  so  all  alienation  between  the  two  has 
disappeared.  This  characteristic  of  the  conscious  life  needs  some 
emphasis;  we  have  so  formed  the  habit  of  thinking  that  the 
content  is  an  element  foreign  to  consciousness,  that  we  are  prone 
to  forget  the  abstraction  that  is  responsible  for  the  habit.  It 
requires  only  a  little  reflection,  however,  to  bring  to  light  the 
vital  unity  that  exists  between  consciousness  and  its  content — 
a  unity  that  is  absolutely  fundamental  to  the  integrity  of  each. 
The  last  characteristic  of  consciousness  that  I  would  call  attention 
to  is  this:  consciousness  is  never  identical  with,  but  is  always 
something  more  than,  its  content.  Notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  the  content  is  always  received  by  consciousness  as  its  very 
own,  as  its  other  self  in  fact,  still  there  is  a  distinction  between 
the  two  that  never  disappears;  consciousness  and  its  content 
never  fall  together  in  an  undifferentiated  identity. 

The  fundamental  importance  of  these  three  characteristics  of 
consciousness,  as  well  as  their  vital  interconnectedness,  may  be 
emphasized  by  a  brief  analysis  of  self -consciousness.  It  is  evident 
that  as  a  self-conscious  being  I  am  of  a  two-fold  nature.  In  the 
first  place,  I  am  a  bundle  of  sensations,  feelings,  impulses,  desires, 
volitions,  and  ideas.  This  is  the  object-self.  And  from  this 
point  of  view  I  am  eternally  changing.  At  any  moment  of  my 
existence  I  am  never  what  I  have  been,  or  shall  be,  at  any  other 
moment.  At  one  instant  I  am  a  center  of  impulses  and  passions ; 
at  another,  a  centre  of  ideas  and  ideals.  To-day  I  am  a  self  of 
pleasures;  tomorrow,  a  self  of  pains.  An  everlasting  panorama 
of  change,  a  veritable  Heracleitean  flux — this  is  what  the  object- 
self  really  is.  But  there  is  another  fact  about  this  self-conscious- 
rest  upon  a  misconception  of  my  meaning.  What  I  have  in  mind  when  I  say 
'content'  of  consciousness  is  simply  that  object,  or  group  of  objects,  whatever  it 
may  be,  to  which  the  consciousness  refers.  And  this  I  take  to  be  practically  what 
one  would  mean  by  the  'objective  reference'  of  consciousness.  If  my  meaning  is 
clear,  I  do  not  care  to  dispute  about  the  use  of  words. 


140        THOUGHT  AND   REALITY  IN   HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

ness  that  must  be  taken  into  account ;  so  far  we  have  considered 
only  one  side  of  it.  It  is  true  that  I  am  eternally  changing,  that 
I  am  not  what  I  have  been  heretofore,  and  that  I  shall  never  be 
again  just  what  I  am  now.  And  yet,  paradoxical  as  it  may 
sound,  what  I  have  been  I  am,  and  what  I  am  I  shall  be.  Under- 
lying the  panorama  of  change,  deeper  than  the  self  that  is  in  a 
never-ceasing  process  of  transformation,  is  another  self  that  gives 
unity  and  coherence  to  the  process.  This  is  the  subject-self. 
And  this  it  is  that  makes  education,  spiritual  development  in 
general,  possible;  without  it  our  experience  would  be  at  best 
but  a  chaos  of  meaningless  sensations  and  incoherent  desires. 
These  two  aspects  or  phases  seem  to  be  present  in  all  self-con- 
sciousness. Take  a  cross-section  of  consciousness  at  any  moment, 
and  you  will  discover  that  it  is  of  this  two-fold  nature.  Even 
in  our  moments  of  most  intense  introspection,  when  we  enter  as 
intimately  as  possible  into  ourselves,  we  find  that  this  duality 
is  present;  indeed,  one  is  inclined  to  say,  it  is  then  that  its  presence 
is  most  strongly  impressed  upon  us. 

It  is  to  be  noticed,  moreover,  that  the  duality  is  absolutely 
essential  to  self-consciousness.  Not  only  do  we  find  it  actually 
present  in  self-consciousness ;  the  implication  of  experience  is  that 
it  must  exist  so  long  as  consciousness  itself  exists.  For  self- 
consciousness  is  just  this  duality:  the  subject-self  and  the  object- 
self  exist  only  as  they  co-exist.  This  fact  may  be  illustrated  by 
the  consciousness  that  we  possess  just  as  we  are  falling  asleep. 
In  proportion  as  this  duality  is  overcome  does  the  waking  con- 
sciousness sink  away;  and  it  rapidly  returns  when  the  attention 
becomes  fixed  upon  some  object  and  the  duality,  unknown  and 
unexperienced  in  the  land  of  dreams,  is  restored.  And  normal 
waking  consciousness  illustrates  the  same  truth.  He  is  most 
truly  self-conscious  who  sinks  himself,  as  we  say,  in  the  object 
that  occupies  the  focus  of  consciousness ;  this  is  the  ethical  import 
of  the  doctrine  of  self-abnegation.1  But  this  sinking  of  the  self 

1It  seems  to  me  false  psychology  and  vicious  logic  to  identify  self -consciousness 
and  the  feeling  of  self  as  opposed  to  a  not-self  as  Professor  Taylor  does  in  his  argu- 
ment against  the  selfhood  of  the  Absolute  (Elements  of  Metaphysics,  pp.  336, 
343-345)-  Awareness  of  self  as  contrasted  with  a  not-self,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  is 
not  at  all  essential  to  self-consciousness.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  speech  that  a 
man  is  most  truly  his  own  self  when  he  is  least  conscious  of  a  more  or  less  discon- 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  141 

in  the  object  attended  to  does  not  destroy  the  difference  between 
the  self  and  the  object;  rather  does  it  intensify  the  duality.  For 
the  object  absorbs  attention  only  in  proportion  as  it  harmonizes 
with  a  set  of  purposes  and  interests  that  are  themselves  clearly 
defined.  To  take  a  concrete  case,  let  us  suppose  that  I  am  in- 
tensely interested  in  a  botanical  specimen.  Here  there  is  evi- 
dently a  unity  of  subject  and  object;  indeed,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  differentiate  the  two,  and  the  difficulty  would  increase  with 
the  increase  of  my  interest  in  the  specimen.  And  yet,  clearly, 
there  is  a  difference.  The  specimen  grasps  my  interest  only  as  it 
makes  its  appeal  to  a  self  whose  centre  of  being  is  more  or  less 
clearly  defined ;  and  the  more  significant  the  hold  of  the  specimen 
on  my  attention,  the  deeper  and  more  significant  must  have  been 
my  training  in  the  science  of  botany.  If  I  am  a  mere  tyro  in 
botanical  investigations,  the  specimen  would  not  make  the  same 
appeal  as  it  would  were  I  thoroughly  versed  in  the  subject;  and 
the  difference  is  that  in  the  former  case  the  appeal  would  be  made 
to  a  less  thoroughly  developed  self.  The  unity,  and  consequently 
the  duality,  is  not  as  clearly  defined  in  the  former  case  as  in  the 
latter.  The  very  unity  of  consciousness  thus  seems  to  be  organ- 
ically bound  up  with  this  dual  relation  of  subject  and  object. 

And  from  this  follows  immediately  a  further  result.  Since  this 
duality  is  essential  to  consciousness,  these  two  phases  of  subject 
and  object  cannot  fall  into  identity  with  each  other.  Take  any 
case  of  consciousness  that  you  please,  whether  it  be  consciousness 
of  objects  in  the  mental  or  in  the  physical  world.  Do  you  find 
there  a  coincidence  between  subject  and  object?  Certainly  not. 
The  object  is  never  its  own  consciousness;  there  is,  and  can  be, 
no  identity  between  them.  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  very  na- 
ture of  consciousness  that  these  two  phases  collapse  into  identity. 
As  Professor  Royce  says,  "When  we  are  aware  only  of  unity,  it 
appears  that  we  then  become  aware  of  nothing  at  all."1  The 
presupposition  of  consciousness  is  that  there  shall  be  something, 
an  object  in  the  physical  world,  an  object  in  the  mental  world, 
something  other  than  the  consciousness  itself,  of  which  the  con- 
certing not-self.  The  logical  problem  of  selfhood,  or  self-consciousness,  is  one  thing; 
the  psychological  problem  of  the  origin  of  the  sense  of  self  as  opposed  to  an  other 
is  another  thing. 

I0utlines  of  Psychology,  p.  90. 


142         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

sciousness  shall  be.  The  two  cannot  be  identical  with  each  other. 
But  this  essential  duality  within  consciousness  must  not  be 
misconstrued  as  a  dualism.  In  his  famous  deduction  of  the 
categories,  Kant  unfortunately  speaks  too  much  as  if  the  subject- 
self  were  superimposed  on  the  object-self  as  something  essentially 
foreign  to  it.  But  the  real  lesson  he  has  to  teach  us  in  that  de- 
duction is  a  deeper  one.  And  that  lesson  is  that  the  unity  and 
the  differences  within  conscious  experience  are  really  one,  that 
there  is  no  chasm  between  them.  It  is  true  that  the  data  which 
constitute  the  object-self  seem  to  be  facts  drawn  from  a  world 
external  to  that  self,  or,  at  any  rate,  external  to  the  synthetic 
unity  that  binds  these  data  into  a  unitary  and  organic  whole. 
But  both  of  these  positions  fall  before  criticism,  for  the  data 
are  vitally  concerned  in  their  own  organization.  We  must  admit 
that  Kant  has  once  for  all  shown  us,  at  least  by  implication  if  not 
explicitly,  that  the  object-self  is  not  foreign  to  the  subject-self: 
the  data  of  the  Sensibility  and  the  categories  of  the  Understanding 
are  common  expressions  of  one  fundamental  principle.  And  this 
implication  of  the  Kantian  philosophy  becomes  explicit  in  Hegel. 
The  burden  of  the  Phenomenology,  as  we  saw  in  our  first  chapter, 
is  that  these  two  selves  are  organically  bound  up  with  each  other, 
and  that,  if  we  are  to  speak  accurately,  we  must  call  them,  not 
two  selves,  but  only  two  points  of  view  from  which  we  look  at 
the  one  self — subject-object.  And  it  seems  that  we  are  forced 
to  say  that  this  is  the  verdict  of  experience.  Consequently,  to 
view  these  two  phases  of  consciousness  in  isolation  is  to  view 
them  abstractly.  Of  course,  this  abstraction  is  perfectly  justi- 
fiable, indeed,  necessary  from  the  standpoint  of  the  particular 
sciences;  but  it  is  dangerous  for  metaphysics.  Whether  the 
emphasis  is  placed  upon  the  subject  or  the  object  is  a  matter  of 
indifference  so  far  as  the  metaphysical  difficulty  involved  in  their 
separation  is  concerned;  metaphysically,  they  are  not  separable. 
The  data  of  the  object-self  get  their  reality  only  when  organized 
by  the  categories  of  the  subject-self;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
categories  are  essentially  those  data,  otherwise  it  is  incompre- 
hensible how  the  organization  could  possibly  take  place.  Thus 
the  separation  between  the  two  is  overreached  and  the  two  fall 
together.  They  are  different,  and  yet  they  are  one — such  seems 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  143 

to  be  the  paradoxical  relation  existing  between  the  two  sides  of 
consciousness. 

The  results  of  our  analysis  of  finite  self -consciousness  are  these. 
The  characteristics  of  consciousness  are  that  it  has  a  content, 
that  it  differs  from  this  content,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  is  one 
with  it.  Moreover,  each  of  these  is  a  condition  that  must  be 
met,  if  consciousness  is  to  exist  at  all.  If  the  content  is  removed, 
then  of  course  consciousness  is  destroyed,  because  there  is  nothing 
of  which  the  consciousness  could  be.  Likewise,  if  consciousness 
and  its  content  are  identified,  consciousness  ceases,  for  the  identi- 
fication simply  amounts  to  the  removal  of  the  content;  and  here 
again  the  essential  duality  is  done  away  with.  Finally,  if  a 
chasm  is  made  between  consciousness  and  its  content,  conscious- 
ness again  is  made  impossible;  when  an  impassable  barrier  is 
erected  between  the  two,  the  duality  upon  which  consciousness 
depends  is  once  more  removed.1  This  three-fold  condition  is  the 
presupposition  of  all  finite  consciousness. 

Now  it  would  seem  that,  on  the  basis  of  this  analysis  of  finite 
consciousness,  we  should  be  justified  in  making  the  following 
assertions  concerning  an  Absolute  Consciousness.  In  the  first 
place,  such  a  Consciousness  would  necessarily  have  a  content; 
that  is,  there  would  have  to  be  an  Other  of  which  the  Absolute  is 
conscious.  In  the  second  place,  this  Other  would  not  be  regarded 
by  the  Absolute  as  something  foreign  or  external,  in  the  sense  that 
it  lay  genuinely  outside  of  the  Absolute;  rather  would  it  be 
possessed  as  an  essential  element  within  the  Absolute.  And, 
lastly,  the  Absolute  would  necessarily  differentiate  this  Other 
from  itself  in  such  a  way  as  to  preserve  the  duality  that  we  have 
found  to  be  essential  to  the  conscious  life.  And  our  justification 
for  making  these  assertions  concerning  an  Absolute  Consciousness 
is  simply  that  these  characteristics  which  we  have  attributed 
to  the  Absolute  are  those  that  experience  shows  us  to  be  funda- 
mental to  all  consciousness  as  we  know  it;  and  unless  we  are 
to  reduce  our  discussions  to  meaningless  logomachy,  we  must  test 
them  by  concrete  experience.  Certainly  it  seems  that  we  must 
assume  that  the  conditions  prerequisite  to  finite  consciousness 
must  be  fulfilled  in  an  Absolute  Consciousness. 

1It  appears  to  me  that  the  'wandering  adjective'  theory  of  idealists  of  Mr. 
Bradley's  type  approaches  dangerously  near  this  catastrophe. 


144        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

What  now  must  be  our  answer  to  the  dilemma  with  which  we 
began  our  discussion?  In  the  first  place,  it  would  seem  that  we 
have  found  a  way  of  escape  from  pantheism  in  our  doctrine  of 
the  Absolute.  For  so  long  as  we  maintain  the  self-consciousness 
of  the  Absolute,  we  are  forced  to  maintain  also  that  the  Absolute 
and  the  world  are  differentiated  from  each  other.  Really,  pan- 
theism is  logically  possible  only  to  the  metaphysician  who  denies 
the  self-consciousness  of  the  Absolute.  For  pantheism,  if  it 
means  anything,  means  identity  between  the  Absolute  and  the 
world  of  finite  existence;  whatever  form  the  theory  may  take, 
it  ultimately  reduces  everything  in  the  universe  to  an  undif- 
ferentiated  unity  with  the  all-inclusive  One.  But,  if  the  Absolute 
be  regarded  as  a  self-conscious  Individual,  this  abstract  identity 
becomes  impossible ;  because,  as  our  analysis  of  the  category  has 
disclosed,  consciousness  always  demands  a  content  from  which 
it  is  differentiated.  Destruction  of  this  duality  is  the  destruction 
of  the  possibility  of  consciousness.  Therefore  no  theory  that 
maintains  that  the  Absolute  is  Self-Consciousness  can  legitimately 
be  accused  of  pantheism  so  long  as  it  is  consistent.1 

But  have  we  escaped  the  other  horn  of  our  dilemma?  Our 
own  argument  has  forced  us  to  admit  that  an  Other  to  the  Abso- 
lute is  essential ;  indeed,  it  is  this  fact  that  relieves  us  from  any  fears 
concerning  pantheism  as  the  outcome  of  our  doctrine.  And  have 
we  not  virtually  limited  the  Absolute  by  positing  this  Other,  which 
our  analysis  of  consciousness  has  compelled  us  to  assume  is  neces- 
sary? The  answer  to  this  objection  is  involved  in  what  we  have 
just  been  saying  about  the  fact  that  the  two  extremes  of  the  equa- 
tion of  consciousness  are  not  foreign  to  each  other;  and  it  might 
perhaps  be  sufficient  simply  to  point  to  this  fact  in  meeting  the 
objection.  But,  since  this  criticism  against  the  doctrine  of  the 

1This,  I  should  say,  is  sufficient  answer  to  all  such  criticism  as  that  which  Pro- 
fessor James  is  persistently  making  of  what  he  calls  'Absolutism.'  Over  and  over 
again  throughout  his  works  he  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  'absolutist'  must  reduce 
the  entire  world  of  finite  existence  into  an  undifferentiated  identity  with  the  Ab- 
solute; and  his  objections  to  the  position  all  rest  on  the  simple  assertion  that  such 
a  reduction  cannot  take  place,  since  the  perseity  of  the  finite  is  more  than  a  state 
of  consciousness  for  the  Absolute.  But  this  is  not  the  position  of  the  'absolutist' 
who  upholds  the  doctrine  of  a  self-conscious  Absolute.  Indeed,  such  a  position 
is  impossible  for  him.  For  his  argument  that  the  Absolute  is  self-conscious  pre- 
cludes an  effort  (even  if  he  had  any  intention  of  making  one)  to  reduce  the  finite 
world  to  an  identity  with  the  Absolute. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  145 

personality  of  the  Absolute  is  so  general,  and  that,  too,  amongst 
Idealists  of  a  certain  type,  it  seems  well  in  concluding  this  dis- 
cussion to  devote  some  attention  to  it. 

I  have  chosen  Mr.  McTaggart  as  the  representative  of  this 
type  of  criticism,  because  his  objections  are  advanced  immedi- 
ately in  connection  with  a  study  of  Hegel's  system.1  His  views 
can  best  be  expressed  in  his  own  words:  "The  Absolute  is  a  unity 
of  system,  and  not  a  unity  of  centre,  and  the  element  of  unity  in 
it  cannot  be  a  simple  and  indivisible  point,  like  that  of  the  finite 
self.  For  if  the  unity  is  of  this  sort,  then,  by  virtue  of  its  sim- 
plicity and  indivisibility,  it  excludes  its  differentiation  from  itself 
in  one  sense,  while  including  them  in  another.  But  the  Absolute 
cannot  exclude  its  differentiations  from  itself  in  any  sense.  .  .  . 
There  is  nothing  outside  of  the  Absolute.  And  it  would  therefore 
be  impossible  for  it  to  exclude  its  differentiations  from  itself  in 
any  sense.  For  in  as  far  as  they  are  not  in  it,  they  are  absolutely 
wrong."2 

In  order  to  evaluate  this  objection,  we  must  again  look  at 
consciousness  and  ask  concerning  its  real  nature.  As  we  have 
already  pointed  out,  consciousness  always  demands  a  content 
with  which  it  is  never  identical ;  without  such  a  content  conscious- 
ness is  nothing  but  an  empty  abstraction.  Consciousness  pre- 
supposes differentiations,  and  in  some  sense  it  is  true  that  these 
differentiations  are  excluded  from  it.  But  this  is  not  the  whole 
story ;  there  is  another  aspect  of  the  conscious  life  that  we  cannot 
afford  to  overlook.  Consciousness  not  only  excludes  its  dif- 
ferentiations, it  also  includes  them.  The  exclusion  is  never  abso- 
lute; the  content  is  a  vital  part  of  the  consciousness;  in  a  very 
important  sense  it  is  the  consciousness.  Consciousness  over- 
reaches the  distinction  between  itself  and  its  content  and  takes 
the  content  up  into  itself,  so  that  the  content,  though  different 
from,  yet  is  one  with  the  consciousness.  As  Edward  Caird  aptly 
puts  it,  "The  self  can  be  conscious  of  itself  as  so  distinguished 
and  related,  only  in  so  far  as  it  overreaches  the  distinction  be- 
tween itself  and  its  object."3  Thus  it  is  that  the  self  or  conscious- 
professor  Taylor  has  advanced  practically  the  same  objections  as  those  of 
Mr.  McTaggart.  See  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  pp.  343  ff. 
^Studies  in  Hegelian  Cosmology,  §86;  see  also  §66. 
3Hegel,  p.  182. 


146        THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

ness  may  be  said  both  to  include  and  exclude  its  object;  and  the 
fact  of  inclusion  is  complementary  to  the  fact  of  exclusion.  In- 
clusion does  not  mean  the  abstract  identity  of  subject-self  and 
object-self;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  does  exclusion  mean  their 
abstract  opposition.  Consciousness  includes  its  various  differ- 
entiations, because  they  are  its  differentiations;  it  excludes  them, 
because  they  are  its  differentiations.  Inclusion  and  exclusion  are 
only  different  names  for  the  same  fact,  just  as  are  the  concave 
and  convex  sides  of  a  curved  line. 

If,  now,  we  are  to  argue  on  the  basis  of  finite  consciousness 
concerning  the  nature  of  Absolute  Consciousness — and,  I  repeat, 
I  know  of  no  other  basis  on  which  to  argue — it  would  seem  that 
we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  such  a  Consciousness,  granting 
its  existence,  would  necessarily  at  once  include  and  exclude  its 
differentiations.  Every  object  in  the  world  would  be  included 
in  such  a  Consciousness,  because  every  object  in  the  world  would 
be  an  object  for  such  a  Consciousness.  But  the  inclusion  would 
not,  could  not,  be  that  of  identity.  For  every  object  in  the  world 
would  have  to  be  excluded  from  such  a  Consciousness,  since  no 
object  in  the  world  would  actually  be  that  Consciousness.1  And 
the  exclusion  could  not  be  abstract  opposition;  the  differentia- 
tions would  still  be  differentiations  of  the  consciousness  for  which 
they  exist.  The  Absolute  Consciousness,  like  all  other  conscious- 
ness, would  be  confined  to  the  circle  of  its  own  differentiations: 
this  we  seem  forced  to  admit.  But  the  differentiations  of  the 
Absolute,  like  the  differentiations  of  finite  consciousness,  would 
be  differentiations  still:  this  also  we  seemed  forced  to  admit. 
And  with  this  we  have  admitted  the  inclusion  and  the  exclusion 
of  the  differentiations  of  an  absolute  Consciousness.  As  Hegel 
remarks,  "God  is  Himself  consciousness,  He  distinguishes  Himself 
from  Himself  within  Himself,  and  as  consciousness  He  gives 
Himself  as  object  for  what  we  call  the  side  of  consciousness."2 
This  is  exactly  what  every  finite  consciousness  does  in  its  own 
limited  way:  it  gives  itself  as  object,  distinguishes  itself  from 
itself  within  itself,  and  is  at  once  knower  and  known,  possessor 

JWhat  would  constitute  individuality,  or  thing-ness,  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
Absolute  is  a  problem  that  demands  separate  discussion.  I  have  no  intention 
of  solving  it  off  hand  by  the  use  of  the  term  'object'  here. 

*Werke,  Bd.  XII,  p.  192  (Philosophy  of  Religion,  trans.,  Vol.  II.  p.  329)- 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  147 

and  possessed,  subject  and  object.  Such  seems  to  be  the  paradox 
of  consciousness  as  such;  there  is  nothing  inherently  contra- 
dictory or  absurd  about  it — unless,  indeed,  consciousness  itself 
is  an  absurdity. 

Thus  we  are  forced  to  say  that  Mr.  McTaggart's  objection  to 
the  doctrine  of  a  personal  Absolute  rests  upon  a  misconstruction 
of  the  true  import  of  the  category  of  self-consciousness.  The 
objection  stands  or  falls  with  the  contention  that,  if  the  Absolute 
were  to  exclude  its  differentiations  from  itself,  those  differentia- 
tions would  either  cease  to  be  real  or  stand  as  a  limitation  to  the 
Absolute.  Now  this  contention  holds  only  on  the  condition  that 
the  Absolute  is  forced  to  oppose  to  itself  its  differentiations  as 
something  entirely  beyond  and  foreign  to  it.  But  it  is  the  very 
nature  of  consciousness  not  to  do  this,  if  our  analysis  has  been 
correct.  For  as  we  have  repeatedly  seen,  perhaps  to  the  point 
of  weariness,  consciousness  is  a  duality  within  unity;  and  if  you 
destroy  either  the  unity  or  the  duality,  you  utterly  annihilate 
the  conscious  life.  And  it  seems  evident  that,  if  you  construct  a 
chasm  between  consciousness  and  its  differentiations,  you  do 
irreparable  violence  to  the  unity  between  the  two.  At  your 
touch  both  consciousness  and  its  differentiations  vanish  into 
nothingness.  There  is  no  meaning  in  talking  about  the  exclusion 
of  something  by  consciousness,  unless  that  something  is  included 
in  consciousness;  for  consciousness  excludes  its  differentiations 
just  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  it  includes  them.  To  argue, 
therefore,  that  an  Absolute  Consciousness  is  impossible  because 
it  cannot  abstractly  oppose  itself  to  its  differentiations  is  exactly 
as  convincing  as  it  would  be  to  argue  that  finite  consciousness  is 
impossible  because  it  cannot  do  the  same.  You  could  argue 
either  way  indifferently  and  with  equal  success  in  both  cases; 
for  your  demand  sins  against  the  presupposition  of  all  conscious- 
ness. Of  course  an  Absolute  Consciousness  is  impossible,  pro- 
vided it  is  so  by  definition;  but  why  define  it  so?  It  seems  to 
be  no  more  inherently  absurd  than  finite  consciousness,  and  there 
can  be  no  question  that  finite  consciousness  is  an  actuality. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  this  objection  of  Mr.  McTaggart 
is  inconsistent  with  his  own  analysis  of  finite  consciousness. 
Speaking  in  another  context  of  the  finite  self,  which  he  grants 


148         THOUGHT  AND  REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

is  'sufficiently  paradoxical,'  he  says:  "What  does  it  include? 
Everything  of  which  it  is  conscious.  What  does  it  exclude? 
Equally — everything  of  which  it  is  conscious.  What  can  it  say 
is  not  inside  it?  Nothing.  What  can  it  say  is  not  outside  it? 
A  single  abstraction.  And  any  attempt  to  remove  the  paradox 
destroys  the  self.  For  the  two  sides  are  inevitably  connected. 
If  we  try  to  make  it  a  distinct  individual  by  separating  it  from 
all  other  things,  it  loses  all  content  of  which  it  can  be  conscious, 
and  so  loses  the  very  individuality  which  we  started  by  trying  to 
preserve.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  try  to  save  its  content  by 
emphasizing  the  inclusion  at  the  expense  of  the  exclusion,  then 
the  consciousness  vanishes,  and,  since  the  self  has  no  contents 
but  the  objects  of  which  it  is  conscious,  the  content  vanishes 
also."1  Now  I  submit  that,  if  Mr.  McTaggart  stands  consist- 
ently by  the  position  here  stated  he  cannot  argue  that  conscious- 
ness, whether  finite  or  absolute,  can  exclude  its  differentiations 
in  any  sense  in  which  it  does  not  at  the  same  time  and  ipso  facto 
include  them.  And  this  is  the  ground  upon  which  his  objection 
against  the  doctrine  of  a  personal  Absolute,  as  I  comprehend  it, 
rests.  To  say  that  the  finite  self  excludes  its  differentiations  in  a 
manner  that  would  be  impossible  to  the  Absolute  assumes  the 
very  point  at  issue,  and  so  begs  the  whole  question.  Does  the 
finite  self  exclude  its  differentiations  in  a  manner  impossible  for 
the  Absolute?  Certainly  not,  if  we  are  willing  to  accept  Mr. 
McTaggart's  analysis  of  finite  consciousness.  The  finite  self, 
he  tells  us,  includes  everything  of  which  it  is  conscious,  and  it 
excludes  everything  that  it  includes.  But,  be  it  noted,  it  does 
not  cease  to  include  because  it  excludes:  inclusion  and  exclusion, 
we  are  told,  are  'inevitably  connected.'  If,  now,  finite  conscious- 
ness at  once  includes  and  excludes  its  differentiations,  is  there 
anything  absurd  in  the  position  that  Absolute  Consciousness  may 
do  the  same?  If  the  finite  consciousness  is  a  differentiation  of  the 
Absolute  just  because  of  its  paradoxical  nature — and  this,  we 
must  remember,  is  the  basis  upon  which  Mr.  McTaggart  rests 
his  argument  for  the  immortality  of  the  individual — may  it  not 
be  that  the  Absolute  itself  embodies  this  paradox  par  excellence? 
If  inclusion  and  exclusion  by  consciousness  are  correlative  terms, 

lOp.  cit.,  §  27. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  149 

why  is  it  impossible  for  a  perfect  Consciousness  to  include  every- 
thing in  the  universe  and  yet  at  the  same  time  and  just  for  that 
reason  exclude  it?  Why,  in  short,  would  it  be  necessary  for  the 
infinite  and  perfect  self  to  fail  just  in  that  respect  which  consti- 
tutes the  very  essence  of  the  finite  and  imperfect  self?  Arguing 
in  this  vein  appears  to  be  an  approach  to  absurdity;  and  yet 
this  seems  to  be  the  position  into  which  Mr.  McTaggart  is  forced 
by  his  own  analysis  of  consciousness.1 

The  whole  difficulty  with  Mr.  McTaggart's  position  may  be 
put  in  very  brief  compass.  His  objection  rests  upon  the  dis- 
junction with  which  we  began:  either  pantheism  or  a  finite  God, 
either  abstract  identity  between  the  absolute  and  its  differenti- 
ations or  a  limited  Absolute.  But  this  disjunction  depends  upon 
an  abstract  view  of  the  nature  of  consciousness.  For  it  implies 
that  consciousness  must  be  either  identical  with  or  abstractly 
opposed  to  its  differentiations,  that  the  Absolute  either  is  the 
world  or  must  regard  the  world  as  something  essentially  foreign 
to  itself.  This  disjunction,  however,  plainly  flies  in  the  face  of 
experience.  As  we  have  tried  to  show,  and  as  Mr.  McTaggart 
himself  has  pointed  out,  consciousness  and  its  differentiations 
are  neither  identical  nor  yet  opposed  to  each  other:  they  are 
'inevitably  connected,'  and  each  lives  in  the  life  of  the  other. 
And  when  we  make  a  violent  separation  between  them,  or  assume 
a  position  that  implies  this  separation,  we  should  not  forget  the 
fact  that  the  possibility  of  finite  consciousness,  as  well  as  the 
possibility  of  an  Absolute  Consciousness  is  thereby  denied— 
simply  because  we  then  have  done  away  with  the  presupposition 
of  all  consciousness.  And  this  suggests  to  us  that  it  would  be 
well  to  investigate  experience  further,  before  we  commit  our- 
selves to  a  position  that  leads  to  such  singularly  disastrous  results. 

This  essential  unity  of  the  Absolute  and  its  Other  Hegel  empha- 

JOne  is  led  to  suspect  that  the  inconsistency  in  Mr.  McTaggart's  position  here 
is  due  primarily  to  a  confusion  that  arises  from  his  terms  'inclusion'  and  'exclusion.' 
Apparently,  he  does  not  always  succeed  in  divesting  the  terms  of  their  spatial 
reference.  When  he  enlarges  on  the  impossibility  of  the  Absolute's  'excluding' 
its  differentiations  from  itself,  he  seems  to  think  of  the  latter  as  existentially  distinct 
from  the  former  and  as  being  in  contrast  with  it  as  a  limiting  other.  This  confusion 
may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  Mr.  McTaggart  hardly  gets  beyond  the  category  of 
substance  in  his  theory  of  the  ultimately  real:  individuality  he  is  inclined  to  define 
.n  terms  of  a  bit  of  being  that  is  individual  solely  by  virtue  of  its  factual  existence. 


150        THOUGHT  AND   REALITY  IN  HEGEL'S  SYSTEM. 

sizes  in  his  exposition  of  the  philosophical  import  of  the  Christian 
dogma  of  the  Incarnation.1  In  this  dogma  we  have  expressed 
in  religious  terms  the  philosophical  truth  that  "the  divine  and 
human  natures  are  not  implicitly  different."  In  Jesus  Christ 
is  manifested  the  Universal,  God;  the  contingent  and  accidental 
circumstances  of  temporal  life  are  disregarded  by  Him.  "Who 
is  my  mother  and  my  brother?"  "Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead." 
But  Christ  is  not  only  God;  he  is  also  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Man 
of  Sorrows.  In  his  death  we  have  evidence  of  the  fact  that  He 
shares  the  common  fate  of  all  human  beings;  indeed,  "in  Him 
humanity  was  carried  to  its  furthest  point,"  since  he  died  the 
aggravated  death  of  the  evil-doer.  This  Personality,  which 
reaches  to  the  glories  of  the  Infinite,  touches  also,  by  virtue  of  its 
divinity,  the  lowest  abyss  of  the  finite.  The  true  lesson  of  the 
Incarnation,  Hegel  would  seem  to  say,  is  that  God  is  not  high  and 
lifted  up  beyond  the  world  of  tim-e'and  place;  but  that  He  is  also 
here,  and  that  it  is  only  here  that  He  finds  full  and  complete  ex- 
pression. God's  Other  is  His  own  very  Self,  and  not  an  existence 
beyond  Him. 

In  conclusion,  then,  we  may  say  that,  as  Hegel  views  the 
matter,  the  puzzle  of  God's  relation  to  the  world  is  to  a  consider- 
able extent  one  of  our  own  making.  By  a  process  of  abstraction 
we  separate  God  from  the  world,  and  then  proceed  to  ask  how  we 
are  ever  to  get  them  together  again;  we  destroy  their  essential 
interconnectedness,  and  then  raise  the  cry  that  their  relation 
to  each  other  is  to  us  incomprehensible.  Consequently,  we  must 
either  take  refuge  in  an  impotent  faith  or  be  content  to  remain 
sceptics  and  agnostics.  "The  'reflective'  understanding  begins 
by  rejecting  all  systems  and  modes  of  conception,  which,  whether 
they  spring  from  heart,  imagination,  or  speculation,  express  the 
interconnection  of  God  and  the  world :  and  in  order  to  have  God 
pure  in  faith  or  consciousness,  he  is  as  essence  parted  from  appear- 
ance, as  infinite  from  the  finite.  But,  after  this  partition,  the 
conviction  arises  also  that  the  appearance  has  a  relation  to  the 
essence,  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  and  so  on:  and  thus  arises  the 

*Cf .  the  third  part  of  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  especially  the  last  of  the  second 
general  division  of  the  discussion.  In  these  passages  Hegel  treats  of  the  essential 
nature  of  man  and  shows  us  that  man's  essential  nature  is  to  be  found  in  his  com- 
munity with  God. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.  151 

question  of  reflection  as  to  the  nature  of  this  relation.  It  is  in 
the  reflective  form  that  the  whole  difficulty  of  the  affair  lies,  and 
that  causes  this  relation  to  be  called  incomprehensible  by  the 
agnostic."1  Hegel's  own  solution  of  the  problem,  which  he 
proceeds  to  outline  for  us  in  the  paragraph  from  which  this 
passage  is  taken,  is  to  be  found  on  a  plane  which  transcends  the 
point  of  view  of  the  'reflective  understanding' ;  and  his  solution 
consists  really  in  pointing  out  that  the  separation  that  gives 
rise  to  the  problem  is  the  result  of  abstract  thinking.  This  more 
concrete  standpoint  he  calls  the  Notion  of  the  speculative  Reason, 
which  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  category  of  self-consciousness. 

.,  §  573. 


/r   * 

,,  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

V     OF 
Xa 


BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

-rassasst.-" ' 


REO 


' 


LD  2lA-60m-3,'65 
(F2336slO)476B 


